


Lian Gets Tired Of Waiting AU

by QuimeraTheTraveler



Series: Open Eyes, Cold Mind, Warm Heart [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Earthling in Star Wars galaxy, Eventual Platonic Battle Couple, Filipina OC, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Jango Fett Lives, Kid Fic, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25990837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuimeraTheTraveler/pseuds/QuimeraTheTraveler
Summary: In the original story, Lian chooses not to risk her and Ducky's safety, waiting on Earth for Sol's return.In this story, she won't stay behind.AU of my fic Ducky, but can be enjoyed as a "Kind-Hearted But No-Nonsense Filipina Mother Saves The Prime's Ass And Bullies Him To Help Her Find Her Husband While Their Kids Become Best Friends" fic
Relationships: Boba Fett & Jango Fett, Boba Fett & Original Female Character(s), Jango Fett & Original Female Character(s)
Series: Open Eyes, Cold Mind, Warm Heart [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1553920
Comments: 39
Kudos: 52





	1. The Beginning

“I’m waiting for dad”, her daughter replied as if it were obvious, sitting in their garden and looking up at the stary sky. “He has been gone for a week, so he’ll come back soon, right?”

He wouldn’t. Lian was certain her husband wouldn’t be back anytime soon. If it was true, if Sol was traveling right now to a galaxy far, far away (and it was, mind you, they had been there to wave him off) it could be years until he came home.

If he ever managed to come back from the war he wanted to try to end.

If he didn’t die: shot or stabbed or starved or spaced or ill or betrayed or sold to slavers and worked to death or tortured or eaten or drowned or—

Lian bit down at her lip, making an effort to take a steadying breath.

Her husband was heading for an intergalactic war.

She was here, with their 10 years old, safe. They were supposed to stay safe, and Sol was supposed to come back. Who knew the countless dangers that would be waiting for them in an unknown galaxy.

But right now, Lian Luna envisioned what their life could be if they stayed on Earth: lying to Ducky, promising over and over that her father would be back, watching their daughter grow up, find her calling in life, move away, have her own family, growing old…

…only for her father to never appear.

“I don’t think _tatay_ will be coming back anytime soon”, she exhaled carefully, watching Ducky slowly slump on herself, crestfallen. “But how about we go with him?”

The child immediately perked up, perplexed.

“…To SPACE?!”

Lian needed to take a deep breath to answer that, to make it final.

“Yes.”

“We can do that?!”, Ducky jumped to her feet, vibrating with excitement.

“Yes”, Lian nodded. “We have to get ready, think this through—”

“We’re going to see _tatay_?!”

“Yes. Yes, _ni_ ”, she looked up, at the infinite and beyond.

She had always wanted to go to the stars.

Two weeks later, Lian had packed two backpacks carrying dried food, several changes of clothes, a variety of seeds, essential medication and some penicillin, some goods to sell for alien currency, flashlights, a printed photo of the three of them… a machete for her, and a pocketknife for Ducky.

“You have to take this with you at all times”, she explained to her daughter, using her this-is-serious tone, and was relieved when she gave her her full attention without hesitation. “We don’t know who is bad out there, so if we ever get separated and you don’t trust someone, I want you to unsheathe the blade, like this”, she demonstrated, “and sink it as deep as you can in a soft spot. Preferably the neck, belly or leg. Understood?”

“But… I don’t want to hurt people…”, she tried to argue, frowning in distress.

“I know, _ni_. But there’s people who will want to hurt you or won’t care that we get hurt, so if you feel somebody doesn’t have good intentions, I promise you: you are doing good by defending yourself. You won’t get in trouble for keeping yourself safe, understood?”

“Yes, _nanay_ ”, she nodded solemnly, and tucked the pocketknife in her cargo pants.

And, unknown to Ducky; Lian packed a gun.

That night, right after dinner, Lian activated the transistor Sol had left behind; and they settled on the garden to wait.

Hours passed in the chill of the night, but she wasn’t worried. Even if nobody came to pick them up that night, they would be there the next, and the next, and the next. She had called to Ducky’s school to say that her daughter would be absent due to illness, and had called with the same excuse to work. It would be some time before someone noticed their absence.

Lian was considering gather up her fast-asleep daughter and call it a day when the sound of unknown engines reached her ears. Ducky stirred and sat up, pressing against her mother for reassurance.

A shuttle touched down in their garden, a ramp lowering itself slowly. A languid, humanoid form walked down the ramp and seemed to blink at them, before speaking a language she had never heard.

_Well. Shit._

The silence stretched too much. The alien tilted their head and said something else.

“Mom”, Ducky tugged her sleeve. “They ask if we need help.”

She whipped her head, staring down at her daughter with wide eyes.

“You _understand_ them?”

“I, uh… yes”, she said shyly.

_Damn you Sol, you magnificent idiot…!_

“Tell them we need to go to Coruscant. Tell them we offer this as payment”, Lian raised the arm holding a bag packed with chocolate tablets as Ducky stuttered out the words.

The alien perked up, inching closer to peek at the contents of the bag.

She didn’t need to speak their language to pick up on the interest in their features. The visitor became very animated, circling them to place their hands on their backs and nudging them to board the shuttle.

“They say we’re welcome!”, Ducky translated, beaming at her mother. “They say they’ll get nice rooms for us!”

Lian wasn’t willing to trust that yet, but she would deal with that later.

At the moment, she had another concern.

“ _Ni_ ”, she called, and Ducky immediately looked up. “I need you to teach me that language.”

Their hosts kept their word and treated them well during the long months of hyperspace travel, so that was one thing less to worry about, thankfully.

Mother and daughter spent a lot of time watching the stars or reading and learning about the galaxy they were arriving to: Lian would leave Ducky in their cabin with texts on flora and fauna and go to talk to their travel companions to catch up with current events and political status.

The same day they arrived at the galaxy, both Earthlings gasped in unison.

“ _Nanay_ , something… happened”, Ducky said, voice shaky and eyes scared.

Lian was currently busy bracing herself against the corner of her bunk, trying to regain her senses.

“I’m just… I got dizzy”, the adult tried to reason.

“I felt weird! Like I could see the whole galaxy for moment, but then I got scared; so I hid inside me again!”, the child explained, unafraid of seeming crazy.

Lian blinked at her, feeling relieved and unsettled at the same time.

“I… Me too. But I didn’t feel scared, I… I noticed things. Important things”, she hushed and looked down, thinking. The compulsion to investigate whatever that had been seemed to bloom out of her very core, and it was nearly _overwhelming_. Her mind couldn’t find a reason _not to_ go where this new intuition told her too.

“Don’t worry, mom!”, Ducky chirped, taking her hand in an attempt to be the one doing the comforting. “I’ll hide you too so you won’t get scared like I did!”

Lian smiled fondly at her daughter, bringing a hand up to caress her cheek.

“Thank you, _ni_ —”, she said, glad that she would find comfort in whatever she thought ‘hiding’ was.

The ship made a stop to resupply on an Outer Rim planet. Lian and Ducky got off to stretch their legs and get used to the alien species they would soon be coexisting with.

Lian also wanted to try and follow that intuition.

She followed it, holding Ducky’s hand all the way, until they reached some sort of scrapyard.

“ _Nanay_ , this place is ugly…”, her daughter whined.

She had always felt more comfortable in nature, Lian new. But to her, a rocket engineer, that place might as well been a candy store.

A candy store full of alien tech, even if it was discarded for being faulty or too old.

And that intuition, that sense, that… Force, took her to a small ship parked there. And it buzzed, and buzzed, and buzzed.

“Let’s go fins whoever owns this place”, Lian muttered, still unable to tear her gaze away from it.

“Oh! They’re this way!”, Ducky piped up immediately, and started pulling her mother away.

The child walked with purposeful steps as they waved through the labyrinth of trash, some sort of hut coming to view soon enough.

Lian was certain she could have spent the whole day looking for it.

“Ducky, how…? How did you know it was here?”, she crouched to ask her daughter, because if she had that… that compass in her, maybe she had it too.

“They’re the only light spot near us, and one light spot is a person, so I guessed they must own the place”, she explained calmly, pointing at the hut.

“You can… sense people? Even when you can’t see them?”, Lian asked carefully, because she wanted to be sure to understand as much of whatever was going on as she was able too.

Ducky looked away for a moment, considering it before nodding with a satisfied smile.

“Yes!”

Okay.

That was weird, but convenient.

“Alright”, she breathed out slowly, mostly not having any idea of what was happening or why was she about to throw away all rational thought to follow that goddamn intuition.

She strode to the hut and knocked loudly on the door.

“Excuse me”, she greeted as soon as the being inside opened the door. “How much for the ship?”

Lian had made a trip back to renegotiate with the ship that had picked them up, since she was abandoning the plan of going all the way to Coruscant. After a heated argument, she managed to get the crew to give back an important portion of the stack of chocolate tablets meant to pay their journey, and brought it back to the owner of the scrapyard to pay for the shuttle and the parts she needed to repair it.

It had been a handful of days of hard but rewarding work and reading on how to actually pilot the ship. The scrapyard owner had in fact been quite helpful with that: an old Twi’lek woman who was grateful that she was being paid instead of stolen from and who hadn’t minded Ducky’s quite impolite questions about her physiology. Ducky, uncomfortable questions apart, had been on her best behaviour: finding things to entertain herself with and offering her help before retreating to play or read. Pyto had even volunteered to babysit.

“Where are you heading?”, she asked when the pair was finally ready to take off.

“I don’t know”, Lian admitted. “Yet”, she added with more confidence.

“Well”, Pyto tilted her head with a brief frown. “If that place turns out to not be as good as you thought it would, don’t doubt to swing by. I could always use your hands and company around here”, she tried to say nonchalantly and failing at it.

Lian guided her to a hug, and Ducky soon was there too, shorter arms thrown around their waists.

“Safe travels”, she bid them farewell.

“Thank you for your hospitality”, Lian returned.

“Goodbye!”, Ducky waved energetically, and Pyto couldn’t help but wave back in the same manner, a big, goofy smile on her face.

“It’s very red. Like Mars”, Ducky commented when they exited hyperspace, right by the planet.

Geonosis. Lian had just piloted a ship faster than light to arrive at a planet called Geonosis.

If she weren’t so wary of everything, she would be fangirling.

“…I don’t think there’s water down there”, she continued anxiously, turning from where she was secured on the co-pilot seat.

“We won’t be staying long”, she reassured her.

She hoped so.

The pull had taken her here, and kept guiding her hands as she steered the ship over the desert.

A dark dot appeared on the horizon, and the pull inside Lian turned into a warning.

“…Let’s land”, she mused her decision, because if she didn’t Ducky would get restless at the change of direction.

They flew a bit closer to what now they recognized as a circular building and parked behind a great dune (not that it mattered much, being a dune, the wind could blow it away at any moment, or even bury their ship).

“Ducky, grab your backpack”, she nudged her daughter, going to grab hers.

She had decided long ago that they should keep their bags ready at all time, in case they had to run. Today, the pull told her to be ready for anything.

The trek through the sand was a tough one. The relief of the sea never came, not like they were used too. Ducky walked in front, with Lian steadying her whenever the sands under their feet shifted too much.

The roaring of a crowd could be heard from within the building.

“Looks like a colosseum”, Ducky hummed after taking a gulp of water from her canteen.

“It does”, Lian had to agree, troubled.

The child looked up at her mother.

“Are you scared?”

She sighed.

“A bit.”

“Then I’ll hide us!”, Ducky took her hand and squeezed, smiling up at her. “I’m very good at hiding!”, she reminded her.

And it was true.

Lian had almost had a heart attack when one afternoon, playing in the scrapyard, she and Pyto hadn’t been able to find Ducky. After hours searching, they had heard giggling from behind them and turned to find nothing but empty air, only for Ducky to suddenly _appear_.

After the initial scare and Pyto dismissing it as _something a near-human species would be able to do_ , Lian had sat down to talk to her daughter about that, and slowly discovered that she could make herself and whoever she wanted invisible.

“Good idea”, she smiled down to her, and squeezed her hand back, once again following her guts through the maze that was the arena.

“There’s a lot of people there”, Ducky whispered nervously.

“Spectators?”, Lian gulped down.

“I don’t know.”

A staircase before them led out of the peace of the shadows and the blazing sun and roaring arena.

The feeling kept tugging, now more urgently.

“Are we hiding?”, she asked for confirmation.

She nodded curtly.

“Stay with me”, Lian reminded her.

“Always”, Ducky completed their moto since they had left Earth.

With one last steadying breath, Lian followed the Force.

It was a battle.

They were droids and what appeared to be giant bugs and people with glow sticks fighting each other and alien creatures running rampant, and the intuition _wanted her to get in there—_

No. Not in the battle. It was—It was more focused. To her right—Not so much—Down—

There, down in the arena, getting trampled by what roughly appeared a bovine: somebody in silver and blue armour.

The moment she laid her eyes on them, Lian knew they were here for them.

_Oh god, were they dead?_

No, they were getting up, good, good…

A distant part of her mind wondered _how_ , but as new preoccupations arose, it quickly got buried.

Because there was someone wielding a purple glow stick –the same glow sticks that could, apparently, slice thought the metal of the droids as if it were butter—heading straight for them with clear killing intent.

“ _Pakshet_!”, Lian spat, dropping her backpack and frantically rummaging through it.

“ _Nanay_?”, Ducky asked, scared by the bad word and the overwhelming noises around them.

“Ducky, cover your ears!”, she ordered as she found the gun she had packed and rested her arms on the rock railing.

It maybe wouldn’t make much of a difference, since they seemed to be in a warzone, but…

Still, Ducky obeyed, watching with wide eyes as the person with the purple glow stick branded their weapon against the armoured person.

Lian hadn’t had much chances to practice her aim, but she hoped they were close enough—

She shot, but the bullet wasn’t fast enough to stop the assailant from swinging down, amputating the arm that had been holding a blaster.

But it did arrive on time to pierce their leg and keep a head from joining the arm on the floor.

A distant cry of fear and sorrow joined the cacophony of the fight, going mostly unheard.

“Ducky, hide them!”, Lian barked, and her daughter turned to the downed person with wide, scared eyes.

Lian could still see them, but when the man she had shot twisted on the floor, their eyes didn’t land on the armoured person laying right by them. With a last sweep, they struggled to their feet and limped away, what she now guessed were their comrades going to assist him.

The intuition still tugged towards them.

“We have to get down there—“, she stressed, looking for a way.

“ _Nanay_ , look! It’s not that high!”, Ducky was leaning dangerously over the railing, pointing downwards.

Lian hurried to get a hold on her, and also peered down.

“If we step first on the spikes, it’s not that high!”

Oh, yeah; the spikes.

The spikes meant for people to not be able to escape the arena.

Those spikes.

“Okay”, she breathed shakily, too stressed over the idea of that person bleeding out on the sand to try and look for a safer alternative.

If there was a safer alternative.

“I’ll go first, and then I’ll catch you, okay?”

“Okay.”

Lian slung her backpack back on, gun still in reach, and got in position.

“Be careful, mom!”

She slid down.

Her legs wobbled on the uneven support, but she managed to brace herself against the wall, and spread her arms up in invitation.

She caught Ducky with a bit of a struggle, and with another repetition, they were at ground level, pressed against the wall. Luckily for them, the fight seemed to be concentrating towards the other end of the arena, so Lian urged her daughter to stay in front of her and towards who seemed to be the only reason as to why they were here.

Lian dropped on her knees next to them, without a clue as to what to do, but willing to do _something_ , even if she had to leave it all to dumb luck—

She pried away their helmet to be faced with her husband’s face.

“Ssssshit”, she hissed, and hurried to turn to Ducky, who was looking down at his face, completely terrorized. “It’s not _tatay_!”, she hurried to reassure her. “Ducky, it’s not _tatay_ , you hear me? He is older, see? He’s not _tatay_ , he’s a _tito_! Understood?”

The little girl nodded numbly, eyes still wide, and took a careful step back.

With that more or less settled, Lian turned her attention on the man lying unconscious on the dirt.

His arm had been cut right at the shoulder joint, and the flesh was burnt to a crisp. She wouldn’t have to worry about him bleeding out, but she had the feeling that third-degree burns brought on a lot more problems. At least he was unconscious, probably from the shock, so he wasn’t screaming… Though maybe he wouldn’t have enough air to do so, if the way he was breathing was any indicative—

“ _BUIR_!”, the desperate cry of a scared child tore her away from her thoughts, maternal instincts flaring up, and her head swivelled to find the source. “Daddy!”

There was a child, clad in blue, running straight for them.

“Ducky”, Lian blinked, “he can see us.”

“We have to hide from him too?”, she asked, genuinely clueless.

Her eyes narrowed in thought.

“No”, she decided, “No, you did good.”

“Dad!”, the child cried again, falling to his knees.

She didn’t know exactly why, but she had expected them to lean over his chest, to latch on the him. She had already imagined wrestling the child away from their father so she could help him, having to be the adult.

None of that happened.

The child, who couldn’t be much older than Ducky, if they were at all, quickly placed two fingers on the man’s neck.

 _They’re taking his pulse_ , Lian realised.

They sucked in a harsh breath, tears in their eyes despite the practised motions.

“I need your help!”, he begged with a sob.

“We’ll help you”, she reassured him, gently squeezing his shoulder in reassurance. “My name is Lian. This is my daughter, Luna.”

“I-I’m Boba. That’s my dad, Jango.”

Lian’s eyes widened minutely.

Boba noticed.

“We need to take him to our ship! We have bacta there, meds…!”

“Alright”, Lian huffed, steeling herself. “We’re going to carry him together. You kids grab a leg each; I’ll take the chest. Boba, you lead. Ducky, make sure we are hidden.”

Boba frowned at the last part, but bent down with them to get a good grip on his father, and did his best to keep them all safe.

And just like that, they sneaked the still-breathing Jango Fett out of Geonosis.

* * *

[Sol's Departure And Lian's Original Decision](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19264822/chapters/48601418)


	2. The Chances Of Meeting The Prime Were Infinitesimal, And Yet...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lian Luna: The Fett Whisperer

It sat wrong with Lian that Boba had been the one to take control of the situation.

The one to guide them to their ship.

The one to break out the medical supplies, to thrust the packages of bacta into Lian’s hands just to grab one and plaster the first against Jango’s stump.

The one to set the jumping coordinates.

Lian had felt useless and awed in equal parts. She had followed Boba’s instructions: applied bacta, bandages, IV, oxygen.

She could have done better. But Jango Fett was alive, so she could have done worse, too.

She let that be a consolation, made sure that Ducky wasn’t too shaken, and waited.

Boba was getting stressed out of his mind, she knew. If she was piloting, he would check on her continuously, presumably anxious that she was taking them somewhere different. If she offered holding vigil over the Mandalorian, Boba would also check on her non-stop, almost out of his mind with fear that she would kill him.

After nearly two hours of this, Lian decided it was enough.

“Ducky”, she sighed. “why don’t you watch over him for a while? I’d like to speak to Boba.”

Both kids perked up. Ducky sent a careful glance at Boba, as if asking permission, and when he didn’t protest, she sat down on the metal chair and blinked at the medical charts. Boba was more reticent to follow Lian to the cockpit, but the weight of his hidden blaster comforted him.

He could take them.

Lian sat down on the co-pilot seat, now at eye-level with him.

Boba held her stare, straightening his spine—

“You were very brave, Boba.”

The soft praise caught him off guard, and he almost reared.

“And I’m sorry that you had to go through that. I’m sorry that I couldn’t do better. It’s going to be okay, now. We’ll help you take care of your dad, if you’ll let us.”

Her apology sounded so genuine and the offer so sudden that he didn’t know how to react.

Mistrust kicked in, as he had been taught.

“Who are you?”, he demanded with an angry frown, toying with the idea of unholstering his blaster and making it a threat. “What do you want? Why did you recognise my father’s name?”

Lian pressed her lips in a thin line, looking away for a moment before leaning back on the seat.

“Peace”, she began, voice as calm as she could manage. “We mean you no harm. I’ve already introduced ourselves: I’m Lian Luna, and my daughter is Ducky or Luna, until she chooses a name for herself. We are… nobody, really. We’re looking for my husband. Her father. He told me your father’s name.”

“Who is he?”, Boba pressed.

Lian hesitated.

“Do you… know what a clone is?”, she asked carefully.

He scowled.

“Yes”, he drawled, not sure where this was going.

It hit him right before she said it.

“No!”, he blurted before she could articulate a word. “No, it can’t be!”

“I have a picture, if you’d like”, Lian shrugged.

“I—I—”, he stuttered.

And before he could say anything, the undeniable truth was in front of his eyes.

A clone.

A clone with a family.

“Boba”, Lian called, gently resting her hands on his shoulders at his shock. “We mean you no harm. I just… I just want to ask your father some questions once he’s better. I won’t push. I promise.”

The young Fett swallowed. The revelation shook him to his core, and that, mixed with the unrelentless promises of safety that Lian offered, broke the dam in him.

He sobbed.

Tears poured, and he let the overwhelming fear of losing his _buir_ out.

Lian reached out gently, making sure every step of the way that she wasn’t unwelcome, until his hands were clenching on her khaki T-shirt and his face was buried in her neck.

Boba guided them out of hyperspace, still sniffing occasionally, but way calmer that he had been, presenting them with a planet that at first sight looked mud-filled.

“It’s not that bad on the surface”, he shrugged, his tone and behaviour finally setting somewhere near his real age. “We… We were going to go to another safe-house, way further from Geonosis, but—”

Before Lian could react, Ducky moved to hold his hand when he couldn’t get the words out.

Boba actually startled, blinking at her and nearly yanking his hand out of her grip.

But her hand was warm and careful, like her mother’s words had been, and when he looked up at her expression he only found kindness, with just a touch of concern.

So he left his hand there, and only pulled away to steer the _Slave I_ towards their destination.

They landed by a lonely, modest house: nothing to tell her apart from the other houses in the distance. To the north, the outline of a bigger town or small city could be seen against the setting sun. Lian calculated it might take them about thirty minutes to get there by foot; enough distance to be away from prying eyes, but close enough to get supplies quickly if needed.

Boba had been right: the earth was dark coloured, but it wasn’t all wet mud. There was abundant low vegetation; plants with strong roots holding the ground together, and some sparse trees.

“There might be something in the house to make it easier to move dad”, the young Fett muttered, jumping off the seat.

“I’ll come with you”, Ducky decided, trotting up behind him.

“Call me if you need help”, Lian offered, crouching down to pick up their discarded backpacks before walking to the bunk where Jango was laid up.

He hadn’t moved an inch: breaths deep and slightly forced, but holding on. The bacta packed around the wound hid the crisped flesh, and Lian chewed on her lips worryingly, wondering what should they do about it. The idea of having to grab a scalpel to cut off the blackened muscle wasn’t… very appealing.

The idea of having to grab a scalpel to cut off the blackened muscle _from a man who had her husband’s face_ wasn’t very appealing.

And the Prime. God, they had found the Original.

She didn’t even know what to do of that.

Honestly, she had questions. Demands, even. But she wouldn’t get any answers from an unconscious man, and asking as soon as he woke up wasn’t going to be of any help, of that she was sure.

Lian just hoped that if they offered kindness, it would be returned to them.

The kids came back running, dragging some sort of floating slab with them.

“ _Nanay_ , look!!!! It FLOATS!!!”, Ducky awed.

Boba narrowed his eyes at her in the fashion that let on that he didn’t understand what was so special about it.

Lian wanted to fangirl. She wanted to fangirl _so badly_ but—priorities.

So she swallowed down her excitement, telling herself that she would be able to examine that hover-stretcher later, and together they moved Jango to the house.

Ducky ran ahead, opening doors and closing them again once they passed, while Boba lead and Lian made sure that the IV and other equipment held in place.

They settled him in the bedroom of the one-story house, which held two beds.

“I’ll fetch the med-droid”, Boba prompted, and scurried off.

The little Luna trotted behind him, like she had taken to do, but this time Lian followed too; intrigued in equal parts by his words and by the housing. They passed what she guessed was the living room, with an open kitchen built in a corner. The house had seemed to have a garden, which was in quite a wild state at the moment.

They had brought seeds. Maybe they could plant some strawberries.

“I am 2-1B 0770”, a robotic voice announced, and Lian leaned over the ledge of the door, eyes wide as saucers. “What can I assist you with?”

“My father’s been hurt. His arm was amputated”, Boba explained, voice wavering again.

“Take me to him”, the droid requested, and made to follow Boba when he exited what she now recognized as a storage room. “Mistress”, it said politely when it passed her.

Lian nodded back numbly.

“It walks! It speaks!”, Ducky tugged on her shirt, beaming up at her. “Do you like it, mom?”

It still came as a shock, even when it shouldn’t, that her daughter, who not long ago had been a baby who could only babble and want for food, company or sleep; could perceive that Lian enjoyed robotics just as Lian had perceived that Ducky enjoyed biology without never really talking about it.

“I do”, she smiled, smoothing a hand over Ducky’s curls. “It’s very cool.”

It was a relief to discover that the med-droid would take care of the most gruesome part of tending to the wound.

Boba left the room where the droid was operating on his father hunched on himself, shifting anxiously.

“I… I’m sorry there aren’t more beds. We didn’t plan for having guests. Let me—Let me arrange you something…”, he mumbled, looking almost _scared_ as he moved around.

“Hey”, Lian called softly, gently squeezing his shoulder to get his attention. “We can sleep on the sofa, hm? Don’t worry to much about it. How about I fix us something to eat while you two do that?”

“I can—I can prepare something”, his voice pitched, and Lian recognized an attempt to prove worthiness and independency.

“So can I”, she replied with a teasing smile.

Sometime later, they had had broth for dinner, since the events of the day had left them jarred and with uneasy stomachs. They were all exhausted, but Boba looked extremely so.

“I think you should head to bed”, she told the children.

It spoke volumes of their energy levels than neither of them complained.

Ducky pattered off to retrieve her pyjamas from her backpack, and Boba disappeared into the bedroom to change. Lian pilled up the dishes and left them in the sink

_To the list of ‘Things That I’ll Handle Tomorrow’_ , she snorted to herself, and turned to softly knock at the bedroom’s door.

When there wasn’t a negative response, she swung it open slightly, peeking to make sure she wasn’t intruding on Boba changing and swinging it open the whole way when she confirmed that she wouldn’t.

The young boy was sitting on his bed, staring at his father’s prone form. The droid was standing by the bed’s head, and arm extended and presumably taking readings on his vitals.

“Hey”, she called softly, slowly sitting by his side.

Boba glanced at her for a moment before turning to his father again.

“I’ll keep watch”, she offered.

“He’s going to attack you”, he blurted out, blinking slowly. “You can’t be alone with him when he wakes up because he’ll be confused and in pain and he’ll try to kill you.”

Lian leaned back at that. She was largely sceptic of that: the man had been trampled and then dismembered and he was currently heavy dosed with painkillers, if not straight up sedated.

But she guessed one could never be too cautious, and at the end of the day, she knew practically nothing of Jango Fett.

“…Would he do the same thing if it were you?”

“I don’t know”, he admitted after a moment of silence, head dipping.

She stared at him sadly for a moment before taking a steadying breath.

“Tell you what: you get some shut eye, and if I notice anything, a twitch, a mumble; I wake you up, and we’ll figure this out together. Are you game?”

He seemed to do an effort to process her words, clearly struggling to keep his eyes open.

“ _Nanay_?”, Ducky called from the door, leaning into the room. “I can’t sleep on the couch. The house is scary”, she whined lowly.

“Ah…”, Lian sighed, and turned to Boba again. “Do you mind if she comes to sleep here?”

He shook his head, already easing down himself.

Ducky trotted off and returned dragging the pillows and blankets Boba had fetched for them. She climbed onto the bed with them and handed Lian her own, placing a pillow on her lap to sleep hugging her mother.

“…You can lie down here if you want”, Boba offered quietly, having left an obvious space on the bed where Ducky could fit comfortably.

The girl looked up at Lian, who nudged her to accept the offer.

“Thank you”, she said as she had been taught, and Boba tossed the blanket so she was covered too.

After an undetermined time of watching over Jango, she turned to check on the kids, finding them sound asleep, hugging each other.


	3. Jango Fett Lives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two kids who had never had friends before, and Jango starts to wake up

At first, Boba was irritated by Ducky following him around.

He was used to being alone, after all, and had barely spent time with kids of his age. On top of that, his bounty-hunter training conditioned him to shake off whoever tailed him.

But Ducky went away when he growled at her and smiled when he was kind to her because she had been kind to him.

He found out pretty quick that he liked the smiles more.

Discovering that she knew practically nothing of the things around them was one of the best days of his life. Suddenly, he had somebody to tell everything his _buir_ had told him; and Luna listened with rapt attention, asking questions and explaining how things were on her homeplanet.

“The sea is light blue and calm!”, she remembered fondly.

“The sea is dark and dangerous”, Boba frowned, from they were crouching by a little stream to watch the bugs crawl around in the muddy earth.

“Only when it rains.”

“It _always_ rains on Kamino.”

“That sucks”, she said emphatically.

Boba turned his head to look at her, hesitating. Her eyes didn’t stray from the water.

_Come on_ , he told himself. _I’ve literally been mingling with criminals since I can hold a blaster, I WON’T be scared of THAT—_

“Are we…?”, his voice trembled, so he shut his mouth to swallow the lump in his throat and be able to spit it out. “Are we friends?”

Ducky turned to blink at him, looking surprised.

“I… yes?”, she grimaced, clueless.

“I thought you’d knew. I’ve, uh… I’ve never had friends before—”

“Me neither”, she blurted out, and offered half a smile when Boba looked stunned. “But that’s okay. _Nanay_ and _Tatay_ said that there’s nothing wrong with me, that some day I’ll find people who want to be my friends as much as I want to be theirs.”

The boy was drowning in the relief of not being the only one to socially lag behind.

“So…”, he gulped again. “Do you wanna…?”

“Do you?”, she tilted her head, her own insecurity making her voice shaky.

“I would… I would like to”, Boba managed to nod.

“Me too!”, Ducky beamed. “We’re friends now!”

“Yes!”, he smiled back, warmth excitement rushing through him.

And without warning, she lounged for him, both rolling on the dirt and laughing their hype out.

“What’s your favourite colour?”, she asked.

“Uhm… Green. Yours?”

“Black! And your favourite food?”

“ _Uj’alayi_ ”, he replied without missing a beat. “Yours?”

“ _Lumpia_!”, she grinned.

“I don’t know what that is”, Boba admitted.

“I don’t know what you said is, either”, she shrugged.

“I’ll make you some!”, he decided, sitting up.

“Cool! Then I’ll make you _lumpia_! What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“A bounty hunter, like my _buir_. And you?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You don’t?”, Boba blinked. “You don’t want to be what your parents are?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t care much about rockets and _tatay_ is a solider, I guess, and I don’t care much about that either. _Nanay_ says it’s fine that I do my own way”, she nodded mostly to herself.

He found no answer to that at the moment, and so they fell in silence.

“…What do we do now?”, Luna wondered with a tilt of her head.

“We… keep being friends, I guess?”, Boba shrugged.

“Sound legit”, she nodded after a moment of consideration, and stood up, offering a hand. “Friends help each other!”, she nudged when he seemed to hesitate.

“Uh… I guess”, he shrugged, but took her hand and stood up too.

“Let’s tell my _nanay_!”, she said, and ran off towards the house. “I race you!”

“Hey! No fair!”, Boba huffed, and sped after her.

It wasn’t hard to catch her. He had been training with her father for a while now, after all. Jango had taught him to optimize every move of his body, the perfect angle of his back, the strength behind the swing of his arms.

Still, it took her more than he expected to catch her.

Ducky moved with light steps, feet carefully placed on the uneven terrain before skipping to the next best place in her reach. The motor of her running wasn’t the will to get to a certain point, but the simple joy of going as fast as she could.

“On your left!”, Boba grinned as he passed her.

“Woah!”, she startled mid-step, and then tried to kick a leg harder, but the stone she leaned on slid on the earth and was launched backwards, making her stumble and fall on her face.

“Haha!”, he barked without thinking, and then staggered to a halt, walking back to her. “You okay?”

She was already pushing herself up, face twisted in a grimace of pain.

“Auch…”, she whined, bringing her hands up to scrub at the dirt plastered to her cheeks and nose.

“You’re not bleeding”, he comforted her, patting her shoulder gently. “Let’s go in and wash it with water, hm?”

Luna nodded, lips twitching in discomfort, and took the hand Boba offered, leading her into the house and towards the refresher.

They had been about to call out for Lian so she would know they were back, but they saw her asleep on the kitchen table, so Boba put a finger over his mouth to let her know that they should keep it quiet. With that settled, he settled her on the toilet’s seat and rummaged through the drawers for a rag to wet. He started to rub it over her cheeks, taking the mud away, but let her take over when she raised her hands to get a hold of the fabric.

He watched as the dirt was washed away and turned to the drawers to grab some plasters.

“You’ve got a couple cuts”, he told her when she pouted in confusion. “There. Like new.”

Ducky prodded at the plasters on her cheeks.

“Quit that”, Boba lightly smacked her hand away.

“I hope _nanay_ doesn’t freak out”, she murmured, poking again at her face.

“Why would she freak out? It’s just a couple cuts.”

She shrugged and stood up, walking off to check on Lian.

“Should we wake her up?”, she wondered.

“She’s been up most of the nights, and we’re here now; so we can watch my _buir_ and let her sleep.”

“Her neck is going to hurt when she wakes up…”

“At least she’s resting”, Boba shrugged.

“Okay. It’s our turn to be the grown-ups, then!”, she proclaimed in a proud whisper, and walked off the retrieve a blanket and spread it over her mother’s back. She also took a pillow and left it near her head so she could shift into it in her sleep.

Luna trotted back into the room, taking off her shoes before entering. Her easy smile fell when she caught sight of Boba’s crestfallen form. She got it, really: if her _nanay_ was so badly hurt, she would be sad most of the time too. It was already weird for her to see her _tatay_ ’s face in Boba’s dad, but the knowledge that it wasn’t him was still a great relief to her.

More reason as to why she could sympathize with him.

She went back to the living room to dig around her backpack, extracting a small, round device before hurrying back to the room and settling on the free bed with her friend. Ducky nudged his shoulder lightly, pressing herself against him when he didn’t pull away not gave signs of wanting to be alone, and showed him the item.

“Look, this is my Tamagotchi. It’s like a pet, but in videogame! I’ll teach you how to play with it.”

Ducky startled without prompt.

“What is it?”, Boba muttered sleepily, raising his head from where it had been resting on her shoulder as he watched her play.

“Something’s happening”, she said carefully, eyes fixed on Jango’s unconscious form.

The boy immediately tensed, eyes anxiously darting between the med-droid and his father.

“Vital signs are raising. The patient is waking up”, the droid informed them.

In half a blink they were both on their feet, Boba approaching his _buir_ carefully and Ducky looking between him and the door.

“Should I get my mom?”, she fretted.

“No! No, he might get scared if he sees someone he doesn’t know. You should step back”, he told the droid.

Luna stepped back, too: pressing herself against the wall next to the door, ready to run off to get Lian if something happened.

On the bed, Jango’s head twitched minutely.

“ _Buir_?”, Boba tried, fighting himself to try and keep a safe distance as much as he wanted to throw himself into his father’s arm. “ _Buir_ , it’s me: Boba. I’m here. You’re fine, you’re safe…”, he took a step forward.

Hazy eyes blinked open, darting and struggling to focus on anything, but as awareness came back to the bounty hunter his breathing picked up, unable to recognize his surroundings.

“Daddy”, he tried again, voice shaky. Ducky was pretty sure he was close to tears. “It’s me… You’re okay…”

“Boba”, she hissed when he kept approaching Jango.

He put a hand behind his back, where she could see it clearly, and waved it in a gesture of dismissal. Luna pouted, but stayed where she was.

The boy reached for his father’s left hand.

The only hand he had at the moment, really.

“Daddy”, he called again.

Jango twitched, eyes darting to Boba’s face. An attempt to raise an arm was made, but he barely managed to lift his forearm before it plopped down again into his son’s hand, already exhausted. But his eyes stayed on Boba’s face, a beat of lucidity shining through the haze.

His lips parted, but only a raspy croak came out.

“You’re safe. I’m safe”, Boba reassured him, squeezing his bigger hand.

Jango went limp again, eyes sliding closed.

He woke up gradually.

Boba insisted that Lian and Ducky stayed out of sight until Jango could stay awake long enough to process a conversation. Lian was _mortified_ that she had slept through what could have been a dangerous event, but seeing as Ducky was also witness that Jango hadn’t lashed out (couldn’t, really), she accepted the boy’s terms.

So during the next day, Lian stayed in the living room and took the chance to get some shut eye and take in her surroundings beyond the house. Ducky sneaked in the room, staying out of sight by the door, acting as a link in case something went wrong during the brief intervals in which Jango was awake and Boba could help him drink water or the broth they prepared.

She was there to lean against Boba when he sat down heavily on the other bed, letting him hold onto her or passing him the Tamagotchi silently.

“Boba”, Jango finally managed to articulate.

“I’m here”, he jumped immediately, lurching forward and leaving Luna to flop down on the bed where they had been propping each other up.

She gave a startled yelp, but pressed her lips in a thin line and stayed still when she realised that he was awake and she was in his line of sight.

Luckily for her, he seemed to be wholly focused on his son.

“Boba”, the man called again, trying to shift on the bed.

“It’s okay, you’re okay”, the kid reassured him, bending to hug his neck.

Jango’s arm slowly snaked around Boba’s back.

Ducky knew the exact moment he realized something was wrong. She shifted on the other bed, trying to get her feet under her so she could go and fetch her _nanay_.

She had thought he would panic. She would, too, if she woke up to find out that she was missing a limb. But when Jango gulped and turned his head to find the absence of his right arm, the strongest reaction that happened was a sharp gasp. His breathing hitched, but then Boba nuzzled his face on his father’s neck, and the man tightened his hold on his son.

“I’m okay”, now he reassured Boba, taking deliberate deep breaths so his breathing would return to normal.

They stayed like that for a long while, and so Ducky stayed plastered to the bed, not wanting to interrupt the moment. But eventually, Jango went to take in his surroundings, and spotted her. He narrowed his eyes, maybe trying to figure out if she was real or not.

“Uh… hello”, she said awkwardly, not willing to bear that stare for a second more than what was absolutely necessary.

“Boba”, the arm around him twitched, but the boy was still able to push up and out of his hold.

“Ah, this is my friend, Luna. But she’s also called Ducky”, he introduced rather awkwardly. No matter: Jango had perked up as much as he was able to at the word ‘friend’, a hope that had the potential to extinguish a worry that he had harboured for some years now.

The fear that Boba would have trouble making friends.

That same hope that was mercifully offering to take a weight off his chest was immediately caged and pulled aside, all his experience on betrayals and treachery taking over. He was weak, and he was wanted, and even children could be groomed or trained or plainly used for long-term infiltrations.

“Her mother is here, too”, Boba went on. “They helped us escape Geonosis and have been helping out since then.”

Jango frowned at that. Boba seemed to be excusing them. It was going to be troublesome if he had become attached and they turned out to have other intentions.

A part of him was worried—no, fuming at the idea that someone had taken advantage of Boba while he was emotionally vulnerable.

The other had faith in his son’s knowledge and judgement of the situation. Maybe he knew something he didn’t and was already double-playing them.

So he blinked at Boba, waiting, but the boy didn’t alert him of anything: no hand signal, no codeword, none of the dozens of fail-safes that they had created together. There _was_ a sort of tension in his shoulders, but he either thought it wasn’t worth mentioning or it was something not-immediately-threatening that he would address later.

He felt tired already with just assessing his situation.

“Should I go get _nanay_?”, she asked politely.

Jango would rather sleep, but taking a look at the other adult in the house seemed like a good idea.

“Yeah”, he croaked, carefully brining his hand to his face to rub at his eyes.

Ducky stood up and dashed for the door, but before she could reach it a person stepped through.

“I’m here”, Lian said softly, catching her daughter when she smacked herself against her legs and hoisting her up for a quick kiss. Ducky smiled in delight and returned the affection without hesitation. “How do you want to do this?”, she asked, walking further into the room. “Do you want the kids to stay, or to go?”

Well. It was nice of her to offer a choice.

“Go”, he replied after a moment, licking his lips.

Lian set Ducky down.

“Right. Why don’t you go to set the table, hm? We’ll have dinner when we’re done here”, she shooed the kids away.

Boba gave his dad another hug before sliding down the bed to join Ducky.

“Bye, Mister Fett”, she waved, and they disappeared into the living room.

They watched them go. Lian moved to gently close the door, letting out a long sigh, and then moved to sit on the free bed. Jango followed her every movement, trying hard to find out if she was a threat, but his brain wasn’t fully cooperating. The only thing he could gather is that she was human and she didn’t look like the kind of person that lived in the underworld. She did have similarities with the little girl, so he guessed that the story that they were mother and daughter was plausible. Other than that, she didn’t look hostile. Wasn’t armed, or at least not that he could see, and she didn’t carry the kind of tension that _karked_ up people who love to have power over others had.

“How are you feeling?”, she finally asked, and he realized he had been staring longer than what was considered polite.

At least it could be chalked up to his general state.

“Fine”, he breathed out without really thinking.

Lian raised a sceptic eyebrow.

“Alive”, he corrected, the act of talking taking more effort than it should. And because of that, because he was alive and in what he now vaguely recognized as one of his safehouses and Boba was there with him, unharmed and well taken care of, he added: “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome”, she nodded slowly. “My name is Lian, by the way. Lian Luna. I don’t know if the kids told you.”

Jango had intended to answer that with words, but seeing the speed at which swallowing down was going, he decided for a weak nod instead, saving strength for important things.

“You know… who I am?”

“Jango Fett. Best bounty hunter in this galaxy, for what I’ve heard. Father of Boba”, she made a pause, considering if she should go on or save stuff for when he was better.

She really wanted answers, but the man was in no condition to hold _that_ conversation.

“What… do you want… from me…?”, he asked, out of breath by the time he was done.

Lian frowned.

“Well. Uh. I’d like a civil conversation once you’re better. I have some questions. Maybe ask for your help with something”, she scratched at the back of her head absent-mindedly.

“With what?”, Jango wheezed.

“Don’t worry about it now”, she shook her head slowly. “I’d just like to know that you will hear me out.”

Well. That seemed reasonable.

“A debt is owed”, he breathed out.

Lian tilted her head at that, her expression slightly troubled.

“Okay…”, she drawled, watching him about to fall asleep, “Just to make sure we’re on the same page: you’re not in danger. Nobody in this house wants you dead. I don’t know in what kind of trouble you are if you are in any, but we won’t rat you out. You’re not a prisoner. Boba is not a hostage. We will help you out until you’re well enough to take care of yourself and your son”, she made a pause.

Jango was blinking heavily, barely hanging onto consciousness, but there was enough awareness in his eyes.

“I would just ask you that you let us stay around, because we ditched our ship on Geonosis and have nowhere else to go”, she added in a bitter mutter.

“This is the Way”, he nodded in what Lian decided to take as agreement until further notice, and fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://discord.gg/Fc2WjTn  
> Made a Discord server for the series!!! Feel free to join!!
> 
> Tamagotchis brought to you by the fact that I found mine in the bottom of a drawer and it still works


	4. Hot Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You get to interact with Jango! And YOU get to interact with Jango! EVERYBODY gets to interact with Jango!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: gentle shower. A TON of love directed at Jango

Despite his restlessness, Jango didn’t resist to the bedrest.

He didn’t have enough energy for that, and so he spent the next couple days sleeping and eating. The med-droid worked steadily, and sometimes Lian helped apply bacta or was simply there, listening to the droid’s explanation of the treatment and recovery plan.

He still hadn’t decided what he thought of her. He remembered her promises, but the betrayals he had experienced didn’t allow him to relax into them. The woman was nothing but polite and understanding. Ever calm. But the kind of calm she sported could also be the careful façade made to hide an entire personality. He had no way to know what she was thinking when she was like that.

But he believed Lian when she said that she didn’t want him dead. There would have been no point in sneaking him out of Geonosis –and Boba had told him how Windu had fallen to the ground just as he had been to deliver the final blow, how the pair had descended to the arena and ran straight for him while he did the same—, and she had had hundreds of opportunities to poison him or strangle him or drown him or rat him out or leaving him to starve or hurting Boba or torturing him or—

The laughter of the kids floated in through the window, dissipating the gloomy thoughts like water to the fire, and he melted into the mattress again.

Not a minute later the children dashed into the room, scrambling for his bedside as he sat-up.

“Dad, look!”, Boba beamed and shoved something he had been hiding in his hands to his face.

A frog croaked at him, displeased.

“Ducky caught it!”

“It has THREE eyes!”, she awed. “On my planet they only have two!”

“How do they see what’s coming from above them?”, Boba asked her with a frown.

“They don’t”, Luna shrugged.

“ _Ade_ ”, Jango sighed. “It’s amazing that you caught it, but I think the frog wants to be outside…”

They turned to the animal, struggling in Boba’s grasp.

“Can we keep it?”, Ducky pitched her voice in an attempt to sound cute and get away with what she wanted.

“Did you ask your mother?”, the man asked with a raised eyebrow.

“No”, she admitted immediately, ducking her head.

“Then why did you ask me?”

“Because she’s not _your_ mom”, the little demon grinned widely.

 _Cornered by a 10 years old…_ , Jango sighed internally.

“Sorry, kiddo. I’m not in any position to oppose your mother.”

Ducky pouted sadly, but did not grumble or throw a tantrum. Boba moved to let the frog go through the window.

“You like catching critters?”, Jango asked her with the hopes of erasing the sadness of her face.

“Yeah!”, she brightened up. “The other day I caught an isopod THIS big!”, her hands went to her shoulder’s width. “But _nanay_ didn’t let me bring it in.”

“Boba loves animals too. Right, Boba?”

“I prefer tookas”, he muttered, oddly blue as his fingers brushed through the small collections of treasures that the kids brought in for Jango from their adventures outside: pebbles, feathers, leaves; even stray scales.

The man frowned at his attitude.

“I prefer horses but they are only on Earth. Boba has showed me eopies, but they are like earless, starved elephants. I don’t like them”, she wrinkled her nose in displeasure.

Jango tried to imagine an eopie with ears and some more kilos, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t managing.

“It’s been a few days”, Lian hummed, and Jango looked up and blinked at her, because she rarely said something just to do small talk. “How does a shower sound?”

 _Heavenly_ , he almost breathed out with desperation.

“I can manage it”, he grunted, manoeuvring to slide his legs off the bed.

“I was offering to help you with that”, she pointed out.

He knew, but—

“You can try to pull it off yourself. Or you can tell me your boundaries and we act like two mature adults”, Lian crossed her arms lightly, cocking her head a bit. “No pressure. You’re the one who knows and sets your limits here, but please: be reasonable.”

There really wasn’t even a glint of coercion in her eyes.

“What was your idea?”, he sighed.

“I bring a chair to the shower stall, you sit on it. You tell me your boundaries, I help with whatever you’re comfortable with, and I leave you to do the rest”, she summarized with an unconcerned shrug.

It _was_ a good plan. Way better than having to manage all by himself with just one hand and without really knowing if he would manage to stay standing through all of it.

“I could call Boba, if you rather he helps y—”

“No”, he cut her, too harshly for how gentle she was being with him. “No”, he repeated; softer, guilty. “I rather… he doesn’t have to see me like that.”

“Severely injured but recovering?”, Lian cocked an eyebrow.

 _Weak_ , was the answer and they both knew it.

Jango didn’t try to answer that.

“Anyways”; she spared him, because they didn’t know each other that well and therefore it was none of her business if he didn’t want to talk about it. “Your boundaries?”, she prompted.

“Yeah”, he cleared his throat, and took a moment to think them well. “No staring. No sexual comments. No questions. If I say I’ll do something, then _I_ ’ll do it”, he tried to frown, to bring up some of the intimidating air that helped him move and survive in the underworld and that now he realized took so much energy to gather up.

“Something else?”, Lian asked, unfazed.

“…Not that I can think of now”, he deflated.

“I’ll do my best to respect your boundaries. Of course: let me know if anything I say or do makes you uncomfortable, hm?”

The way she was so accommodating for him was starting to freak him out. At that point in his life he expected nothing but roughness, fear or indifference from strangers, to the point that it seemed like he could barely trust the woman that had been taking care of him and his son for five days now.

“Ready?”, she dragged him away from his thoughts, still standing at a respectful distance.

“Ready”, he confirmed, and only then did she move to his side so he could snake his arm around her neck.

The journey to the refresher wasn’t long, but it was slow. A quick glance revealed the kids watching a holo on the couch, and Jango breathed a little easier. Lian stopped for a moment, but Jango turned away, nudging her to keep going.

The light plastoid garden chair was already in the shower stall, cleaned from dust and mud, and there were towels on the sink’s counter.

Lian eased him down carefully and took a moment to stretch her strained muscles.

“Okay. Want help with the shirt?”

“Yes”, he decided, starting to try and shrug off the sleeve.

The woman assisted with careful swiftness, and soon they settled on an easy rhythm. Jango slid off his pants and underwear half-way, and Lian took over when his arm couldn’t keep up with the length of his legs.

She kept her eyes on the clothes, setting them aside where they wouldn’t accidentaly get wet, and then retrieved a layer of protective material she had readied to cover his bandaged stump.

Next she grabbed the nozzle and aimed it to the wall, turning on the water and testing the temperature with her fingers. They stayed in silence as it heated up. Jango shivered at the cold air on his bare skin.

“How is it?”, Lian prompted, aiming the weak spray at his feet.

 _Like paradise_ , he almost exhaled in relief. He had missed hot water.

“Good”, he mused.

She proceeded to slowly soak him, smiling to herself when Jango sighed contently.

Then she saw the scars on his back.

 _No staring. No questions_ , he had said; and so she gulped as discreetly as she could and moved on. Never mind that she knew of the rampant and unashamed slavery on this galaxy. Never mind that it was quite clear that those scars had been inflicted with a whip.

That, or he had been backstabbed into not ever trusting again.

Lian pressed gently on his forehead so he would tilt his head backwards and sprayed his hair, feeling out the texture and state of his hair without tugging.

“Here”, she spoke lowly, offering him the nozzle. “Keep yourself warm. I’m going to wash your hair.”

He took it hesitantly, considering to just turn it off until Lian was done. But as he reached to put the nozzle away the cold hit him all over again, being even worse now that he was wet, so he cradled it close to his chest and let the warm water flow over him as the woman shampooed his hair, gently rubbing her fingers over his temples and crown, taking her time.

“You’ve done this before?”, he mumbled, eyes closed but frown present at the unexpected attention.

“My husband and I used to fight over who got to bath Ducky”, her nostalgic smile carried on in her voice. “Now look at her. A grown girl who can shower on her own.”

“They grow up too fast”, he chuckled weakly.

“In no time they’ll know more than we know. And be more open and kinder than we are, hopefully”, she hummed, continuing to massage his head and get rid of the knots of hair.

“…Being too kind is dangerous.”

“I can kick you off the chair if you want.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you did.”

“Because you’re provoking me, or because you don’t expect people to do good deeds without a hidden reason?”

“You _have_ a hidden reason.”

“Well, yes. But even if you said ‘no’ now, I wouldn’t just pack and leave.”

“You told me you have nowhere to go.”

“I’m not leaving a child alone with his wounded father”, Lian scoffed. “Tilt your head back. Hand me the nozzle.”

Their eyes met, but he only found a slightly bothered expression, and she looked away first; careful of not getting soap in his eyes.

The fingers combing through his hair felt heavenly, and he couldn’t help but close his eyes again.

She returned him the nozzle and retrieved the body soap, pouring some on a sponge, and smoothed it over the skin of his shoulders and upper back, gently rising his arm so she could clean his armpits too, travelling down slowly so he could take over at any moment. He did so when she reached his navel, switching the sponge for the nozzle and rinsing off his back.

She _was_ doing her best to not stare.

Jango reached his knees, and offered the sponge back with a quiet defeated sigh.

“Do you know how you’re going to manage your… arm?”, she asked, taking it back and kneeling down to scrub his calves and feet.

“I can afford a good prosthetic”, he said. “The droid said the stump needs to heal some more, but there should be someone who can craft me one in the city. You wouldn’t happen to have retrieved my blaster, right?”

“The one attached to the arm that is no longer attached to you? No. Didn’t cross my mind. Sorry. But we totally have the other one.”

“Tch. It was heavily modified…”

“Tragic.”

“You don’t understand. I had magnets on the handle and my glove! I could call it to my hand!”

“Oh. Damn, that’s dope!”, she muttered, earnest awe in her voice as she finished rinsing him off soap.

“It really was”, he sighed, tiredness seeping into his voice.

“I think we’re done here”, Lian hummed, a hand resting on her hip, the other still spraying Jango.

“…Five minutes more?”, he hadn’t tried to pull puppy eyes since he was eight, but he really wanted to stay under the water.

“The longer you’re sitting up here, the more tired you’ll be once you get out”, she argued softly, looking around the room and spotting a small heater. “Actually, hold that thought.”

“I’ll gladly hold the nozzle instead”, Jango mumbled, and spaced out, lost in the bliss of the warmth.

He didn’t know how much time went by, but eventually Lian tapped his shoulder and he bleary blinked his eyes open.

She gave him a somewhat sad smile.

“Come on. There will be time for more showers”, she offered, a large towel already spread in her hands.

Jango sighed and tapped the water off, bracing himself for the cold—

The towel Lian wrapped over his shoulders and body was already warm, and he sat there for a long moment, dumbfounded. He mostly missed how she took a smaller towel to dry off his legs and hair.

“Do you want to change clothes here, or in the room?”

“Here”, he decided after gulping down, almost overwhelmed by her care.

“I’ll be back in a moment”, she nodded, and went to fetch the clean set of clothes.

He took the moment alone and try to figure out what all this attention was about.

She probably only wanted leverage for when she asked him the favour.

Yeah, it was surely that.

Lian got back soon enough, and they reverse-engineered how they had undressed him. The walk back to the room felt like a trek through a thick layer of snow, and by the time she sat him on the bed he was panting, eyelids heavy. She helped him get his legs on the bed and lie down, spreading the sheets over him up to his waist.

Lying there, with the warmth of the water still clinging to his skin and hair and dressed in a clean set of clothes; Jango drifted off immediately.

Lian watched the man sleep: with that hair, that body that she knew so well and missed so much, and cried in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You really don' appreciate how DOPE hot water is until you spend a week unable to shower. Speaking from experience.
> 
> Hot water is the best, guys
> 
> Also, there might be parent-child angst in the next chapter


	5. Cooking Buir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mandalorians don't care what gender roles are, and there's angst building up

“—hang out the laundry to dry, then I’ll make supper and tomorrow I’ll head into town—“, Lian kept rambling in mumbles, and Jango tracked her as she moved around the room, tidying up.

She looked _exhausted_ , and Jango was pretty sure she was about to have a nervous breakdown, if the way her hands shook were any indicator.

Particularly, what had seemed to set her off was the idea of going to town to buy supplies and scout for someone able to fit the older Fett with a prosthetic. Lian had gone from having permanent slightly narrowed eyes to chewing on her nails, and Jango had seen her going out and take deep breaths more than once.

He didn’t know what was causing such anxiety, could only guess that she’d had some bad experience in the past. It wasn’t his place to ask, but he was pretty sure he could smooth her nerves a bit.

“Lian”, he called from the bed, and started to sit up, legs sliding to meet the floor. “Lian.”

“What?”, she snapped, twirling around to face him. There were dark bags under her eyes.

He was going to insist on her sleeping on a bed tonight instead of the couch.

He slowly but steadily rose to his feet.

It took Lian a good couple seconds longer than usual to widen her eyes and step closer to the man, hurrying to steady him.

“What are you—”

“I’m fine. It’s fine, see?”, he raised his arms a little, gesturing at his general stability.

She jerked at the realization, gaze drifting as she took a step back, getting out of his personal space.

“Listen”, the Mandalorian went on, choosing his words carefully. It had been some time since last he had wanted to be kind to another adult. “You’re tired. You have been doing everything around the house for weeks now. How about you sit down, I take care of supper, and tomorrow we take the kids with us to town?”

Lian went impossibly more rigid for a split second before the words registered and she exhaled lowly, releasing a great deal of stress with it.

“I—It’s fa—The kids—Ugh!”, she growled, bringing her hands up to cover her face.

Jango waited patiently for her to take another breath. The idea of resting a hand on her shoulder to offer comfort passed his mind, but he wasn’t sure if that would be overstepping. Before he could decide, Lian had lowered her hands again.

“Thank you”, she breathed out, head dipping and looking the more defeated he had ever seen her.

Not that it counted for much, since they hadn’t known each other for more than two weeks.

If it could even be said that they _knew_ each other, which Jango still doubted.

But it couldn’t be argued that Lian had taken good care of him and Boba, and now that he had regained enough strength, he loathed seeing her doing all the housework. He was going to argue that chores would help him exercise if she insisted he rested more.

“Right. Come on, time for you to lounge about”, he nudged her back with his hand, guiding her towards the door to the living room.

Lian shuffled ahead of him, looking ready to drop.

“WROOOOOM!”

“PEW PEW!”

The kids waved around the furniture, toy ships held high in the air as Ducky chased Boba around. Boba dropped to his knees to make his ship do a sick swerve around one of the table’s legs and little Luna was right behind him, increasing the frequency of the pew pews and hurrying to catch up with him.

“I’m hitting you!”, she declared as Jango made sure that Lian headed for the couch and didn’t stray to try and tidy anything.

“My shields are holding!”, Boba countered.

“Not for long!”, and before the boy could take in enough air to continue the narrative Ducky slammed her ship against his, knocking both toys to the floor.

“Hey!”, he complained.

“Everybody’s dead. The end”, she declared with a satisfied smile.

“You cheated! _Buir_ , she cheated!”, he pointed an accusing finger at her.

Jango looked up from where he had been handing Lian an equivalent of a cold beer.

This was new to him, too. Boba had never had somebody to play with that wasn’t him.

“Now, now: it was a bold move, and a situation where nobody lives to tell the tale. Do a different one next time”, he tried to appease, but by then Boba was already pouting, an air to him that let known that this went further than a disagreement to a game and put Jango’s parenting instincts on alert.

“It was a metaphor! About not seeking vengeance because it takes your life too and the best revenge is to be happy! Right _nanay_?”, Ducky went on, too content with her ending to notice Boba’s sour mood.

“Attagirl”, Lian cheered with a soft smile.

The little girl pattered to her mother and eyed her drink before tilting her head and asking a question in a language none of the Fetts had ever heard before.

“ _Pwede ko bang inumin yan_?”

Jango decided to take a page off her book and approached his son.

“ _Me'vaar ti gar_?”, he asked quietly.

“ _Naas_ ”, the boy grumbled, turning away.

So, obviously, something was up.

“Boba”, Jango sighed, a nudge and gentle warning.

He clenched his fists and jaw.

“It’s just—“, he started, but hushed suddenly to stifle a whine. “You like her _more_ already…!”

The bitterness he said that with made the man lean back, completely thrown off.

“What do you me—”

“BLEGH!”, Ducky recoiled from the slightly tipped bottle, scowling at the tiny sip she had taken. “It’s hideous, _nanay_!”

Lian chuckled tiredly. “Told you so”. She glanced at them and nudged her daughter with a foot. “ _Galit ang kaibigan mo. Pumunta kausapin mo siya_.”

At that, little Luna perked up and twirled towards Boba, walking hurriedly to him.

“Are you angry at me? I’m sorry, I thought that would be fun for you too. I’m sorry”, she apologised again, looking like a kicked puppy.

“It’s not—“, Boba started, and glanced between his father and her. “It’s fine. It bothered me a little, but it’s fine”, he finally huffed.

And before anything else could be added Ducky leaned forward and hugged him tightly.

“Next time _you_ chase _me_!”, she declared when she backed off, holding him by his shoulders.

“Sure”, he chirped with a small smile.

“You kids want to help Jango with dinner today?”, Lian prompted, sinking further into the couch.

“Okay!”, Luna agreed immediately.

“You’re back to cooking?”, Boba asked his father, excitement bright in his eyes again.

“Yes. We’re having _tiingilar_ ”, the man was happy to announce.

“YES!”, the boy cheered, and hurried into the kitchen.

“What’s that?”, Ducky asked, following after him.

“It’s a stew with meat and vegetables and spices! You’re going to love the spices—”

Jango chuckled, faintly relieved that Boba’s mood had improved, but still edgy. He turned to Lian, who was now lying down with an arm thrown over her eyes.

“Hope you don’t mind I speak to her in Tagalog”, she waved a free hand lazily.

“As long as you don’t mind that I speak to Boba in Mando’a.”

“Not at all.”

“Never heard of Tagalog. Where is it native from?”

“Philippine Islands, on Terra, deep in what you call Wild Space.”

“Hm. You come from that far to ask _me_ for a favour?

“Well. It wasn’t planned, but since we found you…”, Lian shrugged.

“What, am I not ready for that conversation yet?”

The woman sighed tiredly.

“Let’s wait for you to get your prosthetic, yeah?”

And maybe it was the general exhaustion in her voice, or the way her arms tightened around her head or the faint tremor that returned to her fingers; but Jango took pity on her.

“The stew is kinda spicy. Is that okay?”

Lian gave a thumbs-up and rolled over, curling up and hiding her face against the cushions.

He waited a handful of seconds out of concern, but seeing as the woman didn’t move an inch, he turned to the commotion in the kitchen.

“Dad, we readied the ingredients!”

Jango walked in to see everything necessary neatly lined up on the counter, the two kids looking up at him expectantly.

The bounty hunter couldn’t help but smile at his two helpers for the night.

“Well done. Let’s get to it, then.”

“ _Osik_!”, Boba swore when the knife he was holding slipped and the vegetable he had been chopping produced an uneven slice.

“Language. We have guests”, Jango reminded him.

“ _Osik_!”, Ducky parroted immediately, way louder than necessary, and the man winced, praying that if her mother had heard them she couldn’t tell that it was a swear word. “What does it mean?”

“Nothin—”

“It’s Mando’a for ‘shit’.”

“Boba!”

“Do you have swears in your language?”, he asked, paying his father no mind for the first time in his life.

“ _Pakyu_! But don’t tell my mom I know that word!”

“What does it mean?”

“Fuck you.”

“ _Pakyu_ ”, Boba breathed out with great feeling, gaze in the middle distance and eyes shining.

“ _Ade_ , that’s enough”, Jango scolded them. “Son, if you’re done with the vegetables dump them in the pot.”

They hushed and hurried to get back to their chores.

“Good”, he encouraged him, gently ruffling his hair. “How’s the meat coming, Luna?”

“Almost!”, the girl called back, voice strained as she put all her focus on safely cutting the meat.

Jango would have rather be the one to do that part, but now that he had set on a task the absence of his right arm made itself painfully known. If tomorrow he couldn’t get a fancy prosthetic, he would at least get a support or hook to be able to handle more things on his own.

“Alright then. Now we have to spice it…”, the man looked around, trying to locate the ingredients. “Where did you put it?”

“I couldn’t reach it”, Boba admitted, opening a hanging cupboard and gesturing to the small jar out of his reach.

“Oh! Oh! Get on my shoulders!”, Ducky zoomed towards him, crouching down a bit.

“I can reach tha—“, Jango started to say, but Boba was already climbing on top of her, reaching up.

Little Luna stumbled precariously under his weight and the boy’s arms windmilled, scrambling for purchase on the open cupboard but tilting dangerously towards the pot above the fire.

In his first adrenaline rush (fuelled by distillate paternal instincts and a mini-heart attack) since Geonosis, the bounty hunter gritted his teeth and shot his arm up, grabbing Boba by the scruff of his shirt and yanking both kids in the opposite direction.

His son dangled from his still raised arm, getting a hold of his father’s wrist, while Ducky fell on her butt with a startled cry.

They stood stock still for what seemed like an eternal moment.

“Everything okay?”, Lian called from the living room.

“Fine! Just a small scare!”, Jango replied immediately, and set Boba down, kneeling as Ducky sat up.

Seeing his hard eyes, she flinched.

“No roughhousing near the kitchenette. Nor close to any kind of fire. _Ever_. You both could have gotten seriously hurt. Is that understood?”

“Yes”, Boba bowed his head. “Sorry, _buir_.”

“Sorry, _tatay_ ”, Luna ducked her head too, but suddenly froze. Her wide eyes flew to Jango’s: “Sorry Mister Fett!”

The man’s brain was slightly short-circuiting at the moment, but the startled correction snapped him out of it and he cleared his throat, pulling the children to their feet one at a time.

“Right. Nobody’s hurt, so you aren’t grounded”, he told them, and they relaxed.

Jango let out a tired sigh, his heart still beating wildly, and reached to grab the spices. “You want to do it, Boba?”

“Yeah! Look, Ducky, I’ll teach you how it’s done.”

The girl glanced at Jango before following her friend.

He stared after her, leaning back on another section of the counter to catch his breath.

If Lian was ‘ _nanay_ ’, then ‘ _tatay_ ’ was…?

He was assuming. He was assuming and that was always a mistake. Even if it meant what he thought it meant, it was a slip-up. He didn’t even know if her father was alive: for all he knew he was a deadbeat and as soon as he had his prosthetic Lian would ask him to track him down and drag him back or kill him.

Yeah, that sounded about right.

Still, he couldn’t help the warmth spreading in his chest at the idea of Ducky calling him _buir_. It was silly, really. He shouldn’t get attached with someone else’s kid.

But perhaps this was one of these rare occasions in life when you just have to enjoy what you have at the moment.

She was a good kid.

“It’s done, _buir_!”, his son called.

“Well done”, he blinked out of his thoughts and walked up to them to check their progress. “Now we dump it in the pot with the vegetables and we wait.”

After all the hassle of preparing the meal, Jango was worried that it would be too spicy for their guests. He didn’t know what he was going to do if Lian and Ducky literally couldn’t eat dinner because it was too much. Damnit, he should have seasoned the meat himself…!

Lian shoved the first spoonful in her mouth, oblivious to Jango’s inner turmoil, and chewed calmly.

“Mm… Tasty. What’s it called?”

“ _Tiingilar_!”, Boba supplied quickly. “You like it?”

“Very much”, the woman smiled at him. “You guys are great cooks.”

Boba preened at the praise, focusing back on his food with a flattered blush.

“It’s not… too spicy?”, Jango gathered the courage to ask, now faintly amused.

Lian turned slowly to him with a smug smirk.

“Ducky here _loves_ Korean food”, she gestured to her daughter, who was on her fourth spoonful already.

“It’s like eating lava!”, she beamed in between gulps.

“Chew, _iha_ , you’re going to be sick if you don’t slow down.”

The amusement in Jango’s chest morphed to something akin to pride. Seeing that his guests were pleased, he ate.

“No, no”, he caught Lian’s arms as she made to collapse on the couch again. “Have a bed tonight. Boba and I can share, and we can have Ducky too if—”

“Don’t call her that”, her voice cut him like cold durasteel.

“…What?”, he asked, perplexed.

“Don’t call her Ducky”, she clarified, still sounding unsettlingly angry but starting to be aware of her reaction. “I mean—Sorry. It’s a nickname my husband and I gave her. I would rather you don’t use it”, she huffed, the bristling threat replaced by apologetic eyes.

“I… see. I’m sorry I overstepped.”

“’S fine. You didn’t know.”

They both looked away, waiting for the other’s next step.

“Well. The offer still stands”, he finally said, and retired towards the room.

Ducky was the first to come into the room to roll around the now free bed in her pyjamas. Like magnets attracting each other, Boba rolled off from where he had already settled against Jango to join her.

Lian appeared sometime later, dressed in her own pyjamas and drying off her black hair with a towel. By that point the kids had already mostly tired themselves out, so the boy rolled off the bed and easily snuggled back against his father. Lian slipped under the covers and Ducky crawled after her.

“Good night”, she said softly.

“Good night!”

“Good night!”

“Good night.”


	6. Trip To Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lian is sassy and finally gets a bit of alone time, Jango keeps being taken care of, and Ducky hears about the Haat Mando'ade for the first time

“…You sure it’s not too far for you?”, Lian fretted, looking out the town in the distance.

“I’m fine”, Jango rolled his eyes, adjusting the cloak around him one-handed. “And this is a mostly rural world. I bet somebody would give us a ride if we asked.”

He had woken up feeling well, despite the emotions from last night, and that had boosted his confidence. He was positive that he could make it there, but had to admit that if they spent too much time strolling around walking back might be a challenge.

He decided to worry about that when the moment came. Being exhausted at the end of the day would be worth it if that meant he was well on his way to get his prosthetic.

“If you say so”, Lian shrugged, and shouldered her mostly emptied backpack.

Ducky was also carrying hers: with her stuff secured under the couch. The elder Luna did so to carry whatever supplies they would buy, while the younger would probably end up filling it with cool rocks and feathers.

Boba also carried a bag of his own, having wrestled it out of his father’s hands so the still recovering man wouldn’t push himself too far.

“He’s a good kid”, Lian muttered as they started the trek to town, the children already ahead of them on the path, racing each other.

“So is Luna.”

She pressed her lips in a thin line, acknowledging that Jango was following up on his promise of not calling her Ducky, but the absence of the nickname also left a grinding feeling between them.

It reminded her that the person next to her wasn’t Sol, even when she herself wanted to be well aware of it.

The walk there was uneventful. The few people on the fields didn’t pay them much attention, except if the kids greeted them first (Ducky was adamant on speaking to everybody who wasn’t human); and once they reached the town nobody spared them more than a glance.

“Nobody here eats human children, right?”, she asked nervously, and suddenly wondered if what she had just said was offensive to some species.

“Not that I can see now. But keep an eye on them. _Ade_!”, Jango called, and the kids turned obediently from where Boba had started guiding Ducky towards a stand. “Stay where we can see you!”

“Yes, dad!”

“Yes, Mister Fett!”

“Alright then”, Lian sighed. “What’s on our list?”

“Supplies first”, he suggested. “Then we ask around for a medic”, he paused and sunk his hand in a pocket, extracting a small bag with no small amount of credits in it, and handed it to her. “This is for you to spend on whatever you want _and_ a small blaster.”

Lian blinked at the item, surprised.

“I, uhm… thanks. I… already have a weapon, tho.”

“A slugthrower, yes. Boba told me”, he cocked an eyebrow.

She cocked it right back, levelling him with an unimpressed stare.

“We just call them ‘guns’ or ‘glocks’ on my planet. It’s not such a mouthful.”

“In that we agree”, Jango chuckled deeply.

He made a note that she hadn’t reacted badly to Boba’s small betrayal. No scrunching up of her features. No threat, not even a cuss word.

That woman was either one of the best actresses he had ever met, or she really didn’t have a drop of malice in her body.

“So you know I’m armed… and you’re buying me _another_ gun?”

“Blaster.”

“You know what I mean”, she rolled her eyes.

“’Guns’ are rare here. You better save up that ammunition”, he shrugged nonchalantly, and despite the truthfulness of his words, he had a split second of clarity to wonder why was he trying to look cool.

“…Okay”, Lian said slowly. “Thank you.”

He acknowledged her gratitude with a nod and they moved on to the first food post.

“You know I know shit about blasters, right?”

They bought the basics of food, drinks and some spare clothes before Jango spotted a decent weapons stand and dragged Lian to it.

“How about this one?”, she tried again, showing the small blaster to the bounty hunter.

He glanced at it and levelled her with a flat stare.

“You’re really picking them based on aesthetic, huh?”

“Is it _that_ bad?”, Lian grimaced.

“Yes. Yes it is. Never pick a weapon because it looks good! They’re trying to pull the wool over your eyes with the design and then the power pack is going to be _osik_ if it’s even there! Or the cannon will be warped, or the handle will fall apart, or—”

“I get it, I get it!”, she huffed. “If you’re going to pick an ugly one just get it over with! I don’t know why you ask for my opinion when I already told you I know nothing about this!”

Jango winced, suddenly aware that he was being a smartass. That was no way to teach something to somebody, and he should have known better. He was proud he had raised Boba without making that mistake, after all.

“Sorry”, he cleared his throat, head ducking minutely.

Lian’s angry frown eased, but stayed.

“I think this one would be better”, he offered instead, and proceeded to take it apart easily enough, using the stand’s table as leverage.

“Wow”, she awed, impressed.

“I’ve been practising”, he couldn’t keep the smugness off his voice.

“So _that’s_ what’s you were doing when you asked for your goddamn blaster!”

“Hey, bedrest gets boring. Now hush, I’m trying to teach you about blasters”, he cleared his throat to continue. “See this power pack? It’s good enough, and it has the upside that is compatible with several kinds of ammunition, one of which is the most common in the galaxy. You will need at least a couple hits to bring someone down and a couple more to ensure they _stay_ down, but at least you won’t have to worry too much about running out of charge”, he re-assembled it and offered it to her. “There’s also this one”, he took a bigger blaster. “The shots will pack more power, but it’s hard to hide, so your enemies will know what’s coming. The element of surprise can be a real table turner.”

Yes: he had to admit that they were both ugly. Jango mourned the loss of one of his blasters silently. It was going to be a while until he found a WESTAR-34 and even more time to modify it, but that wasn’t going to keep him from dual-wielding.

“Tell you what”, he quipped, amused. “I’ll buy an ugly blaster too so you don’t feel too bad.”

“ _So_ considerate”, Lian snorted, and put down the bigger blaster. “I’ll take this one”, she eyed the smaller one, turning it in her hands.

“Good choice”, he nodded, and hoped that that made up a bit for his previous rudeness. “Do you want something for your kid?”

Lian twitched, froze, and before her killing glare could slide up to his face the man was already adding.

“Just asking. A lot of people carry blasters around here, it’s not that rare seeing armed children. Boba has one because… well. He has one.”

He left it there and stood very still.

The rage of a parent was to be feared more than that of a predator.

The woman glanced to the side in thought. A scowl lingered on her face.

“I’m… not comfortable with that”, she admitted begrudgingly, which meant that she understood the logic of his reasoning.

“Alright. Think about it”, he nodded, tiredness slipping into his voice. “I think I need a break”, he added before Lian could comment on it.

They paid for the blasters and some charge packs and she tucked them in the backpack before placing a supporting hand on Jango’s back to guide him to a public bench.

“Do you want some water?”, she asked, already offering him the uncapped canteen.

“Thanks”, he accepted it, trying to keep his breaths from becoming pants.

He passed her the flask back when he was done and watched her took a few long gulps, eyes fixed on where Ducky and Boba were entranced with a toy stand.

“Go treat yourselves”, he nudged. “I’m going to take it easy over here.”

Lian turned her head around to see him get more comfortable on the seat.

“Should I send Boba over?”

“Not if he doesn’t want to. Leave the backpack with me, I’ll watch it.”

“…Okay. Shout out if you need anything.”

Jango watched her walk away.

“Will do.”

Ducky squealed in delight, hugging her brand-new Dire-Cat plushie.

Boba wasn’t much different, eyes still shining at the plushie he was holding.

“Thank you, Miss Luna!”, he beamed.

“Look mom! It’s like a puma, but with spines!”

“It’s awesome, _ni_ ”, she smiled at her.

“What’s yours, Boba?”

“Ah, it’s a Fyrnock!”, he jerked out of his stupor, and turned the toy around to show it off. “They are predators that can only hunt in the dark because they get hurt by the sun!”

“OHH!”, she awed, stepping closer to absorb all of its details. “It’s…! So…! Cool…!”

Lian saw her daughter pinch her lower lip with her teeth and she huffed; knowing that that meant that little Luna was now more interested in the other toy.

“Maybe you can swap plushies some time, hm?”, she offered, seeing as Boba was also devouring Ducky’s Dire-Cat with his eyes.

“Uh… sure!”, they both agreed, patting each other’s toy.

“Jango is taking a break. Why don’t you go and keep him company? I’m going to take a look around, but I’ll be back soon.”

“Sure!”, Boba replied immediately, and took three quick strides towards his father, only stopping when he noticed that Ducky wasn’t following.

The girl was fidgeting in place, hugging her plushie with a distressed look.

“It’ll be okay, _ni_ ”, Lian knelt down to caress her hair. “Boba and Jango are nice, hm?”

It took a moment, but she nodded in agreement.

“I think so too. I’m sure you’ll be alright, and so will I”, the woman spread her arms, letting her daughter come closer for a hug. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Okay”, Ducky replied into her shoulder, and slowly let go.

Boba offered her a hand, and together they walked up to Jango.

The bounty hunter saw them come towards him and smiled at the toys they carried.

“Ah, a Fyrnock and a… Dire-cat…”, he blinked, memories flashing before his eyes.

“On Earth we have nothing resembling Fyrnocks, but we have cats! But they don’t have spines. They are either small and fluffy or big with fangs and claws. But not spines.”

“…I see. Dire-cats saved my life once.”

“Really?”, Boba quipped, and hurried to sit himself beside his _buir_ looking up at him expectantly, even though Jango was pretty sure his son was already filled in on everything that involved Jaster Mereel and his legacy.

Before he could understand what was happening, Ducky was seated on his other side, watching him in the same manner.

Oh, well. Storytime, then.

“I was fighting a ruthless man, who I had been tracking all around the galaxy—”

Lian stayed to make sure that the kids didn’t leave her or Jango’s gaze for even a moment before leaving.

Knowing that she wasn’t alone in the city put her at ease and allowed her to take a long, calming breath. If she made an effort to rationalise that even though most of the beings around her weren’t humans they were still people, this could have been any other town of her homeland.

Never mind the ships constantly coming in and out of atmosphere.

_THAT WAS SO COOL_

Lian allowed herself a low squeal of joy and dived into the streets.

She patted the bag of credits the bounty hunter had given her. She still didn’t have the most trustful grasp on the value of credits, but she was fairly certain that he had given her enough to get a handful of fancy things.

The rocket engineer didn’t intend in buying luxuries, though. Maybe a treat, nothing grand.

She found a spare parts shop (there were dozens per square kilometre, it was astonishing, really) with a friendly enough seller.

“Yes, yes, what can I help you with?”, a lizard-looking person hissed at her, visibly making an effort to mimic human body language and not crowd her.

“I’m looking for magnets. Powerful ones, with several meters range, that they can be turned on and off”, Lian chose her words carefully, hoping that her request wasn’t too complex.

“Ah, yes, yes. That pile over there, plenty to choose! Working on something?”

“I have a few ideas”, Lian smiled to herself, inspecting the items on sale. “What else do you have? I’d like to know your merchandise.”

“A bit of everything, really! Pieces to fix and build almost everything someone may need, yes”, the vendor nodded sagely, arms crossed over their chest. “Things to make the everyday life easier, yes? What everyone wants. Some clothing too! Sturdy boots. Good to resist the mud if you live in the fields.”

“I was wondering, I’ve seen that floating… carts are common”, she articulated awkwardly.

“Hover lifts? Yes, they’re very useful”, they tilted their head. “You’ve never seen them?”

“I—no”, the woman admitted, embarrassment raising to her cheeks for no logic reason.

The Trandoshan blinked slowly before placing their hands on her shoulders.

“Life must have been hard”, they said with deep sympathy.

“I—well—“, Lian tried, startled.

“I have hover pads! Easy to attach to whatever you need to lift! How much money do you have? I’ll make you a discount”, they decided, already turning deeper into the shop.

“Oh, that’s…! I’m not sure I can accept it…!”, Lian hurried after them.

“Buy the magnets and something else and they’re yours for half the price, yes? Life without hover lifts. Tough life…”, the vendor mumbled the last part to themselves.

Lian was dispatched from there with several sets of magnets and hover pads, basic tools and new boots for herself and Ducky.

She found Jango and the kids right where she left them: seemingly enraptured by the man’s tales.

As expected, the bounty hunter was the first to notice her approach, glancing at her with sharp eyes before recognising her and relaxing again to wrap up his story.

“Any trouble?”, the man asked with an arched eyebrow, discreetly scanning behind her for suspicious activity.

“None”, she reassured him. “Got some things to entertain myself with. Thank you”, she nodded in appreciation.

“Right back at you”, he nodded back slowly, voice laced with respect.

“Mom, did you know about the _Haat Mando’ade_?!”, Ducky bounced from her seat, breaking the moment. “They are mercenaries but only take jobs that do good!”

“Are they?”, she encouraged, hiding her incredulity to the best of her ability.

“Were”, Jango mumbled, word almost lost in the breeze.

Boba leaned into his father’s side.

“Hm?”

“I’m rested now”, he changed subject, rubbing her son’s arm in appreciation and comfort before standing up. “Let’s ask around for a good prosthetist.”

Lian kept her eyes on him, but Jango just walked past, Boba holding onto his hand.

“He’s sad”, Ducky lamented.

“…I know, _ni_ ”, the woman sighed, hand drifting to her chest in an attempt to ease _Jango’s_ emotion within her.

She had always liked to brag that she was good at picking up other people’s body language and moods, but this was too much. This was _different_ , and Lian didn’t know why.

She just hoped it wasn’t dangerous.

It was quite easy to get the villagers to recommend prosthetists, to Lian’s surprise. With Jango’s general attitude towards people, she hadn’t expected strangers to be kind enough to answer unprompted questions, but then again; the vendor she had encountered had been very nice. There were only two experts in town, and they went to talk to them both before deciding which one to hire. The Mandalorian argued that the materials of the first they had visited didn’t look very resilient, but Lian couldn’t offer much to the discussion without specifications on them, so the man ended up discussing it mostly with his son. Lian and Ducky roamed around the workshop, taking the sight in or reading information displayed here and there.

After some more talking, Jango decided to hire the second prosthetist, and the two kids played with their toys as Lian conspicuously hovered around in an attempt to learn how the melding with the nervous system worked.

The Togruta man was more than happy to tell her all about the details of it, sharing her fascination, even if it wasn’t a novelty to him.

After a long while of waiting and testing, Jango was handed off a temporal, simpler prosthetic and sent home.

It was dusk by the time their modest house came into their view.

Jango had been distracting himself with the temporal fix for his arm and the landscape, but he was sweating and his breaths were starting to become pants.

“Let’s take a break”, the elder Luna said, worried.

“We’re almost there”, he panted, jerking his head to the house ahead, where the kids were already racing despite the long day.

“Jango.”

It had been a while since someone had said his name with that tone.

It had been a while since someone dared scold him.

Before he could even recover from the shock, Lian sighed.

“At least stop a moment and take a sip.”

And yeah, okay, that sounded good.

“…Okay.”

The exchange was swift, natural, in a way that put Jango at ease. Lian waited for him with her arms crossed, but she didn’t emanate impatience or irritation at the delay. After a quick check of their surroundings, she looked up.

“Wow”, she breathed out, arms falling limp at her sides.

The man frowned and followed her gaze, wondering what had awed her.

Above them, there were only stars.

Not that he couldn’t appreciate the beauty of stars, mind you. He had been on plenty shitty places where they were impossible to see.

“It’s a beautiful night”, he prompted, putting away the canteen.

“It is”, Lian exhaled, and seemed to make an effort to look down at him. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m ready.”

They resumed their pace. Ahead of them, Boba and Ducky were waving their arms at them.

“We’re coming, we’re coming!”, she called out before sighing. “Listen, I’m tired. Let’s just make eggs for dinner and call it a day?”

“Agreed”, he echoed her sigh, eager to get to sit down. “…We could have dinner outside. To watch the stars for a while.”

Lian started at him with an unreadable expression for what seemed like an eternity before she gathered herself.

“Yes. I would like that.”

They ate fast, spurred by the children, and then they all turned their gazes up. A month ago Jango wouldn’t have believed that he would be teaching constellations to two total strangers, but there he was; searching them up on the holonet, surrounded by them and his son. Boba was delighted to pick up explanations or just straight up jumping to describe his favourite constellations.

“I was born under Aries, so that’s what I am!”, Ducky piped up, wanting to share her knowledge too.

“What’s that?”

“On Earth there’s something called the zodiac”, Lian answered. “There’s twelve constellations, one dominant during a certain time of the year. Some people believe that depending on the constellation you have been born under, you’ll have a specific set of attributes.”

“Aries is a tup and the first of the zodiac!”, her daughter announced proudly.

“And you?”, Jango prompted, casting an amused glance at her.

“Cancer. A crab.”

He _wheezed_.

“What?”

“Sorry, sorry! You just… don’t strike me as a crab, that’s all.”

“Oh?”, she asked innocently, and jabbed his side lightly, playfully raising her hands to make a pincer gesture.

Before Jango could defend himself or rush to set boundaries, Lian turned to her next victim and dove over Boba, fingers tickling more than jabbing. Ducky yelped and tried to crawl away, but her mother was already reaching for her to drag her back.

Boba rushed to get over his father, thinking himself safe.

Too bad.

The night ended with tickles, laughter, and more stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prolonging the domestic fluff? In my fic? It's more likely than you think


	7. The Father, The Son, And The Holy Spirit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nor Lian nor Jango know really where they stand with each other, and the peace is shattered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cocks angst-gun*
> 
> WARNING: I cried writing this chapter. Heavy angst towards the end.  
> Trigger warning for being kicked out of a house

The next days fell into an easy rhythm.

Jango’s stamina was improving, so he spent the time dusting off the house and doing other chores, set to get used to his prosthetic even if it was just a temporary one; while the kids ran off to do Manda-knows-what to get back with their clothes that dirty and Lian made the most of the things she had bought in town.

Apparently, that involved tinkering with a project he wasn’t allowed to peek on.

That… should have grated him way more than it did.

An undercurrent of him was still ready for the eventual betrayal. He already had a knife hidden with him at all times and made sure that Boba had one, too. The boy only pouted minutely at his request before quickly putting it away under his shirt.

And that alertness was precisely what made him startle every time Lian chose to be kind instead of doing what he was sure was the inevitable.

Because there was _something_. The thing the woman wanted to ask of him would either endanger his life and his son’s, or be just some bounty hunter errant and then they would be out of their life again.

He didn’t get why she put so much effort in taking care of him. She had already saved his life. He was already bound by honour. What was the point of doing all that?

Jango was fretting again.

Suddenly the house chores weren’t enough to get rid of the pent-up energy and the tingling in his arms.

An idea sparked up in his mind.

So he walked out to the porch, where Lian was handling a welding gun, protective mask on. This time, she didn’t bend over her project to shield it from him when she realised his presence.

The Mandalorian cocked an eyebrow in bewilderment.

“What are you doing to your shoes?”

Lian took off the safety gear.

“Something stupid, probably”, she admitted with a slow nod before turning to him. “But fun, if it works!”

Her genuine grin would have been contagious if it hadn’t been so brief. The woman cleared her throat and grabbed a wet rag to wash her hands with.

“Everything alright?”

“…I’m… restless. I need to exercise, and I would normally go through combat motions with a dummy, but I’m aware punching something made out of wood or metal right now wouldn’t be wise”, he explained, arms crossed and not really making eye contact.

“You want me to help you.”

It wasn’t a question.

Their eyes met.

“Please.”

“I have never done this”, she said, hesitation clear in her voice, but she was already standing up.

“It’s okay. I need to go slow, anyways”, he shrugged, and guided her further away from the house, away from sensitive tools.

Lian stood there, head slightly tilted in curiosity as she stared him up and down.

“I need you to raise your hands”, he started to guide her. She blinked but didn’t startle, and dutifully followed his instructions. “Shoulders and elbows relaxed. You might want to bend your knees a little for balance, too.”

She adjusted her position, unpreoccupied, yet visibly interested in what they were doing.

Jango took a moment to take her hands in his and make sure that the position was adequate so he wouldn’t hurt her wrists on accident, and then took a step back; a moment of awkwardness passing between them as he wondered if he should issue a warning before starting. But Lian’s attention was already on him, so he decided that it wasn’t necessary.

He started slow, for his sake and Lian’s.

The Filipina adjusted fairly quick to any changes Jango made, either at angle or force. Her attention jumped from his hits to his stability and breathing.

On the other hand, the Mandalorian was preoccupied with not hitting too hard with his now-metal hand while trying to figure things out about the woman’s strength. Once or twice he wondered if he should try for a sucker punch, but he didn’t find it in himself. And if he hit her too obviously, her kind act might fall away.

So after a long while, he lowered his guard and regarded Lian.

“Have you ever fought before?”, he asked, just the right tone between interested and casual.

“Not in a fistfight”, she shrugged, lowering her arms too. One raised up immediately after to scratch at her nape. “I guess shooting a guy from a distance doesn’t count as fighting either…”, she muttered.

The Mandalorian blinked at her.

“…Can you pull a punch?”

“I guess”, she shrugged again.

He made an inviting gesture.

Lian raised an incredulous eyebrow.

“Come on”, he nagged her on.

“Really? You want me to punch you?”

“Yes.”

Her other eyebrow joined the one high on her face, arms crossing in gentle negation.

“Come on. You just admitted not knowing how to fight, you won’t hurt me”, Jango rolled his eyes.

Her expression was still sceptic, but he could feel her caving.

“Are you _sure_ about this?”, she stressed.

“Very”, he nodded.

“Okay”, Lian sighed, fidgeting for a moment as she felt for the best posture to do what was asked of her.

The man studied her calmly, keeping an eye on her footing as she slowly eased int—

Something VERY solid hit him square on the cheek, and next he knew he was on the ground.

“ _PAKSHET_!!!!”, a voice he didn’t immediately recognise swore loudly. “Jango! Are you okay?!”

Someone was looming over him, shape coming into focus as he regained his bearings.

“What the…?”, he managed to articulate, finally recognising Lian offering him a hand up with a sheepish smile.

“I knew this wasn’t a good idea.”

She tugged him into a sitting position, and for a second more he could only blink, dumbfounded.

“What?”, Lian smirked, amused. “That I don’t know how to _throw_ a punch doesn’t mean that I can’t _pack_ a punch. I love open-ocean swimming, you know? I’ve been doing it most of my life.”

Well. That explained Lian’s built: wide and robust, pretty similar to Jango’s.

He didn’t know what he had expected.

“Jango?”, she called gingerly when he didn’t reply.

So she had the strength. She only lacked the technique.

“You should learn how to fight. How to _really_ fight”, he pointed out, accepting her help to stand up. “You won’t always have your blaster with you, or it won’t always be the best option.”

“Well, I can’t exactly walk around town and asking people: ‘fight me!’, now, can I?”, Lian took a step back and rested her hands on her lips with a tilt of her head and a joking smile.

Jango raised a suggestive brow.

“Come on”, she sputtered. “Are you really _that_ bored?”

“You don’t know how to shoot and care for your weapons, you don’t know how to efficiently fight”, he listed. “I’m baffled you got in _and_ out of Geonosis”, he crossed his arms.

“Ehhh well, that was mostly your son”, she mimicked him, and refused to say anything else, just staring at him.

He caved in less than 10 seconds.

“Yes, I am _that_ bored.”

Lian snorted, and then let herself laugh.

Jango regarded her with a blank expression as her laughter died down.

“Okay”, she sighed. “But I want you to know that I feel bad about punching you.”

“Very courteous of you”, he raised an eyebrow. “But that will prove a problem when we spar.”

“Well, that’s a problem for future me, then”, the woman shrugged nonchalantly.

“I want so see how you shoot”, he spoke before she could walk away.

She stopped herself mid-turn.

“With my index finger”, she was already grinning before she ended the sentence. “Okay, okay; dial down that killing stare, hells”, Lian appeased him, gesturing with her hands. “I’ll get the blaster.”

The Mandalorian released a loud sigh and went on to gather a few targets: mainly rocks and little replaceable house stuff. He had a decent amount of items gathered and lined up by the time Lian came back, weapon held loosely in her hold, barrel pointed to the ground and safety on, for what he could tell.

She walked up to where he was waiting for her, arms crossed.

“Well?”, she inquired. “How do you want to do this?”

“Just take your time and shoot that can”, he pointed at the object, the furthest at the right of the things he had rounded up.

Without another word, she adjusted her stance and hold on the blaster, switching off the safety.

Jango eyed her posture and pressed his lips shut to keep himself from correcting her right away.

The bolt flied waaaaaaay over the can.

“Are you kidding me?! I shot a guy further than that!”, Lian yelled at the can.

“Try spre—”

Lian turned to face him at neck-breaking speed.

“Don’t tell me to spread my legs my legs are already spread if you tell me to spread my legs I’ll knock you on your ass again!”

Jango clicked his jaw shut.

“…Pass the blaster, I want you to watch my stance and mimic it.”

A good while later distant, childish bickering called their attention away from Lian’s training. Boba and Ducky ducked to slip below the fence delimiting the house’s garden.

“—n’t need to squeeze like that…”, the girl was muttering sourly.

“The point was that you didn’t have to fight the grip, you had to redirect it—“, Boba was still trying to explain.

They both hushed when they noticed their parent’s gaze on them.

Particularly, their muddy clothes.

“We’ll do the laundry!”, they chorused before the adults could get angry.

“Fair”, Lian sentenced, blaster half-hidden behind her back, and checked the chrono she had picked up for herself. “Go take a bath, I’ll get lunch started.”

The kids took off immediately, their chatter turning excited before becoming conspirer whispers.

“I’ll keep an eye on them”, Jango said. “But when I get my final prosthetic you and I _are_ sparing”, he pointed an accusing finger at her.

“Why must you threaten me”, Lian muttered loud enough for him to hear, yet carrying no bite as she put the blaster away.

The man snorted, glad that that hadn’t been quite a refusal, and went to follow the kids.

He heard their muffled voices and giddy giggles coming from the bedroom, where now all of them stored their clothes. He had noticed that Lian and her daughter didn’t own more than three changes and a pair of sets for cold and hot weather, so he had offered them to share the clothing he and Boba had.

Which also wasn’t much, since this was a safehouse and not equipped to stay indefinitely, but it was something.

Jango went straight for the bathroom and walked to the panel next to the rectangular shower stall. With just a click, the short border slid upwards until it became a bath tub. He flickered on the water tap and went to knock on the bedroom’s closed door.

“ _Ad’e_ ”, he called. “There’s a bath on. Try to make it quick so we can have lunch, okay?”

“Okay!!!”, they echoed from the other side, suspiciously cheerful.

Suspicious, but not specially worrying.

Jango turned away to tidy up a few clothes and abandoned shoes.

A door slammed open and another slammed shut before he could glimpse at the culprit. He hummed and turned to investigate. He caught a look of Boba’s clothes strewn around the bedroom’s floor and glanced at the closed bathroom door and noticed the sudden silence.

“Boba?”, he called, moving for to open the door. “What are yo—”

The door swished open to Ducky and Boba, heads submerged up to their eyes and staring at each other above the water in a double competition.

They glanced at him and let out a stream of bubbles before focusing again on each other.

“What are you doing?”

Ducky popped her head out of the water.

“Seeing who can hold their breath _and_ stare for longer!”

And she ducked back under again, but Boba was already out, smug smile growing on his face.

“You looked away! I totally won!”

“No fair! I was answering his question!”

“I said ‘make it quick’. Holding competitions while bathing is not ‘making it quick’”, the man pointed out.

“That’s why we are bathing together! So we’ll have time! It’s all calculated, dad, really”, Boba reassured, and ducked under again, the girl following suit.

Jango huffed a sigh of acceptance and went to find Lian. He found her dividing her attention between lunch and her shoes’ project.

“We agreed no tools in the kitchen.”

“Right, right”, she startled, putting them away quickly. “Sorry, yeah. I just think I’m close to getting them to do what I want them to do. Something the matter?”

“Boba and Luna are taking a bath together. Does she need help with something?”, he offered politely.

He was always more than glad to help out Boba with his baths (he had also always enjoyed bathing his baby boy and buying or making toys to make bath-time more fun as he grew up), but he was also aware that letting another adult help bath his child without permission would warrant a blaster hole through the forehead, even if they had been living together for a few weeks now.

Lian stayed silent for a moment, considering him.

He was ready for a no, really. Trusting someone with one’s kid was a big thing, and—

“She has some trouble combing out her curls, if you can make sure she doesn’t give up at a third of it, please”, the Filipina replied, and turned back to cooking.

Yes, he was taken aback.

No, that didn’t stop him from walking back to the bathroom and handing the shampoo to the kids as he grabbed a comb and gently brushed the children’s hair as they washed each other’s backs.

Coaxing them into getting out of the water was more of a hassle, but perfectly manageable when the smell of lunch filtered in.

“What are you doing to end up this filthy?”, Jango asked his son with an amused tone once Ducky was already dressed and she had ran off to her mother.

“Well, it’s just—“, Boba tried. “Kamino was so _clean_. I could roll around anywhere and not get a particle of dust on me!”

Well, that was true.

“But you have not only lived on Kamino. And that doesn’t answer my question.”

Both true, also.

The boy looked away for a moment, probably scrambling for a suitable explanation that wasn’t the truth, but he seemed to be failing.

“Okay, okay!”, he conceded, fidgeting in mild embarrassment at being caught. “I’ve been trying to teach Ducky how to fight.”

Jango raised an eyebrow.

“She’s already ten! And she doesn’t know how to throw a punch!”, Boba exclaimed in bewilderment.

If the daughter was anything like the mother he was surprised his son wasn’t sporting a black eye.

“You’re not hurting her, are you?”, he asked pointedly, arms crossed to show the severity he didn’t want to infuse his voice with.

“Of course not! I’m being careful, like when you teach me!”, Boba insisted, and his gaze suddenly focused on his father’s cheek. “She’s not hurting _you_ , is she?”

The sass he had tried to ask that with melted away with a pang of worry and fear.

“…I tried to teach Lian how to fight, too”, he admitted with a good-natured roll of his eyes.

“Miss Luna did a better job than Ducky, I see”, Boba chuckled.

Jango ruffled his son’s hair with a wide smile of his own.

“Lunch is ready!”, little Luna hollered from the living room.

“Let’s go”, the man patted Boba’s back softly. “And next time try to wrestle on grass, not mud.”

“You know that thing I was working on and that I wouldn’t let you see?”, Lian blurted out.

Jango looked up from the datapad he had been reading, comfortable seated on the couch with his feet propped up.

The kids were outside, hanging the laundry to dry.

“How could I forget”, he deadpanned with a raised brow, eyes sliding down to see her hands hidden behind her back.

It was fine. He had his knife on him, and now he had an idea of the strength behind her fists.

He could reduce her.

“Ta-da!”, she sing-sang, bringing her hands to the front.

One was clad in one of the gloves Jango had bought for himself, the other loosely holding his new blaster.

“What—“, he tensed.

With a flicker of her gloved hand, the weapon was pulled to it and held securely.

The first reaction was a bottomless pit of despair followed by blazing rage at the thought that _she was a Jedi, he had let a Jedi into his house and close to his son and—_

And 0.2 seconds after that, he realised he had fallen for the same trick Dooku had fallen for.

Luckily, his expression had stayed fixed at surprise.

“You mentioned your lost glove did this. I’m aware that this gun is not the best thing and that you’ll probably replace it, but… It was a project I could work on. And I thought you might like it”, she shrugged, and pulled the glove off, handing it to him.

“I—“, he stuttered, no words forming in his mind for an eternal, uncomfortable moment. When he looked up, Lian was smiling, apparently already content with his reaction. “Thank you”, he managed.

Her smile grew a little before suddenly saddening, as if she had just realised something.

“I’m glad you liked it”, her voice strained at the end.

She left the room in a hurry.

Living with Jango and set her at ease.

The nearly-overwhelming anxiety of being in charge of a child in _an unknown galaxy_ had peaked the moment Lian processed that she was in charge of TWO kids and a dying man.

But as Jango recovered and a routine formed, the tension had slipped off of her shoulders. He might be a wary man; but he obviously loved his son, and his reply to Lian’s politeness was good manners. Coexisting had been easy.

Dangerously so.

If she closed her eyes, if she locked away the memories of months of travel in a cramped spaceship, she could swear that she was home, in the Philippines. Ducky was happy and running around with a friend, and Sol’s voice—

But no. It wasn’t Sol. Sol wasn’t there.

She missed him in the tender hugs from behind, in the warmth of his body in bed, in his cooking and his laughter whenever Ducky said something weird or funny or endearing enough to make him melt.

She missed him in Jango’s face, in the scars he had that Sol didn’t, and in the scars that he didn’t have and Sol did.

Tinkering had helped her think how to approach the subject, but it hadn’t made it any easier. Lian didn’t know enough about the Prime to be able to trust the outcomes she imagined. Didn’t know enough to ensure that her daughter would be safe in case everything went south.

Maybe she shouldn’t have been so accommodating. She should have prodded at his temper, try to get a read on his limits.

Too late for that now.

There was no postponing it anymore. They both knew it.

It was implicit in the apprehension look in Lian’s eyes that she couldn’t quite conceal when they left for Jango’s final fitting, and in his worried glances whenever the woman spaced out from the small talk he had grown used to hold with her as the kids walked ahead.

She was _afraid_.

Of what? What was about to happen? Was a trap about to be sprung and she dreaded possible outcomes? Did she fear for her life? For her daughter’s? If they really were mother and daughter, that is.

A part of Jango smacked himself. Of course they were mother and daughter. He had been living with them for almost a month now: the bond between them couldn’t be called anything else. But that made even _less_ sense. If this was all a very elaborated trap, why bring a child along? To gain his trust? Even so, he wouldn’t hurt the kid if he could avoid it. Lian should know it by now, she shouldn’t be afraid of that. So why…?

The question remained unanswered most of the day and through the replacement and first trials. This prosthetic was thicker than the temporal one, and its movements were more accurate to what Jango wanted them to do. Ducky and Boba were mesmerized by the fingers’ mechanism, as he had decided not to pay the extra for synth-flesh. It didn’t matter: he was going to cover it up with his flightsuit and glove anyways.

The prosthetist assured him that precision would increase with practice, recommended a check-up schedule and sent them off.

The walk back to the house was weird enough that the children noticed the shift in mood, looking between them as if expecting to be scolded.

“What’s wrong?”, Boba ventured, voice fearful.

“Nothing’s wrong”, his father answered, glancing at Lian. “Soon it’ll be time to get back to work, that’s all.”

The boy frowned at the signal.

Jango frowned right back. This wasn’t good. Boba _knew_ the importance of their safety words. The fact that he was hesitating—

His son snatched Ducky’s hand.

“When we got home you can play with my Fyrnock”, he told her, and dragged her ahead.

Jango sighed. Having the kids a safe distance away was good, anyways, and even if little Luna turned to be more dangerous than she looked (which he doubted), he was confident that Boba could take her.

“Do you want to talk business now?”, he said, as casually as possible.

“…I would rather sit down to talk about this.”

“Fine”, was all he could say to that.

When they made it there the children were already in the bedroom, starting a narration for their game.

Lian carefully put down her bag and went to sit at the table, interlacing her fingers on the surface. Jango watched her from the corner of his eyes as he gulped down a glass of water. The nervousness still persisted in her frame, but she still seemed more fearful than hostile.

He sat across from her, resting his arms on the table.

“Do you deem me recovered enough to have that mysterious conversation?”, he started lightly, but kept his guard up.

“I guess”, the woman sighed heavily. “I want your help to find my husband.”

He nodded. He had gathered it was a possibility.

“Well then. I’ll need his name, a picture, last known whereabouts and location—”

“It’s not that easy”, she interrupted him, hiding her hands in her lap, eyes darting over his face. Her unrest was peaking.

She was doing something with her hands, wiggling in her seat.

Jango’s hand moved slowly towards the vibroblade under his shirt.

But what Lian produced wasn’t any sort of weapon; but a sheet of some sort.

She slid it across the table, eyes fixed on it.

The Mandalorian extended his hand to drag it closer.

His gaze swept over Lian’s radiant smile, Luna’s slightly chubbier cheeks and to—

He covered his mouth with a hand, eyes going wide.

His heart skipped a beat. Maybe more.

“What’s this”, he hadn’t intended it to, but it came out as a growl.

“My husband. Sol”, she replied past the lump in her throat. “The father of my daughter.”

His chest burned. His head ached.

“Get out.”

“You said you would hear me out!”, she protested.

One had escaped.

A clone had slipped past him, and it had a _daughter_.

The chair screeched ominously against the floor as he stood up.

“Get. OUT”, he snarled.

Lian reacted to the body language, standing tall, too.

“You said you would listen to me. You swore!”, she spat, gripping the edge of the table.

“He’s dead.”

“You don’t know that!”, she roared.

“Chances are that he is”, the bounty hunter replied coldly.

Lian dipped her chin, taking in air and leaning forwards on the table, hands gripping at the laterals.

“Help me find him”, she commanded.

Jango copied her pose.

“Get. Out. Of. My. House.”

She didn’t move.

“NOW!”, he shouted, slamming his fist against the table separating them.

Lian flinched away, jaw clenched and eyes overflowing with tears of rage and frustration.

“ _Walang hiya_ ”, she hissed at him, and he knew an insult when he heard one.

But he was frozen by the blazing feelings swirling from his head to his heart and from his heart to his head, so he only watched as the woman deliberately stepped away and out of his range to circle to the bedroom’s door, from where the children had been watching in silence since the shouting had started. “Ni, grab your bag”, she said, low and dry as she grabbed hers and stuffed in a few things she had left around the house.

“But… it’s dinnerti—”

“It seems like that doesn’t matter”, Lian said as dryly, wrapping Ducky’s coat around her and picking up her backpack herself.

Ducky dropped the stuffed Fyrnock as her mother scooped her up.

The woman hoisted her up and turned away without ever facing Jango, headed for the door, and slammed it shut behind her.

Jango deflated, letting out all the air he had been holding as he slumped in the chair and held his aching head between his hands.

“ _Buir_ …?”, Boba asked shakily.

The man sucked in air, pulling himself together to face his son.

“It’s okay, Bob’ika.”

“It’s cold outside”, the boy said, a worried grimace on his face as he stepped closer to his father.

“They had to go.”

“They have _nowhere_ to go!”, Boba argued.

“You don’t know who they really are!”

“YES I DO!!!”, his shout faded into silence.

Jango could only stare.

For a moment, all that could be heard were Boba’s attempts at not sob.

“Ducky is your biologica—”

“She is no one”, he declared, standing up to go to his son, kneeling in front of him and holding his shoulders. “She’s the spawn of some clone, she shouldn’t even ex—”

“I AM A CLONE, TOO!”, Boba swatted his _buir_ away. “If the other clones aren’t people, why would you still love me now that you have a—a—a _normal_ child?!”, he bawled, trembling as tears streamed down his cheeks.

“Boba”, Jango breathed out, a tear of his own falling to the floor as he gently took his hands back to his shoulders. “You’re my _son_. That’s a choice that I will make every day of my life and that I will never change, not a birthright. You’re my son and no one and nothing could ever replace you. Do you understand?”, his voice broke.

The boy pressed his lips shut, giving a jerky nod.

Jango pulled him into a hug.

“I love you”, he chanted to remind him. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Just as Boba seemed to relax in his hold, he pulled away, not meeting his eyes.

“Boba?”, he called softly, but the boy turned away, grabbed a bag and picked up the discarded plushie to stuff it inside it before heading for the bedroom.

“Boba!”, Jango stood up to follow him. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going with them”, he said between sobs, and twirled around to face him. “You might not want to help them, but I do”, and he turned again to keep grabbing clothes.

“I thought Luna made you feel—”

“That’s not her fault”, he hiccupped. “Ducky is my friend”, he slung the bag over his shoulders. “And if you’re not letting them come back, then I’m going with them.”

“ _Nanay_ , it’s cold”, Ducky cried against her chest.

“I know, _ni_. I’m sorry”, her mother cried too, trying to pull her closer to her chest, to offer her whatever warmth she had.

She raised her eyes, towards the lights of the city far away. She hoped that the prosthetist or that nice seller would take them in, at least for the night; and then she could try to find a way back to Pyto’s place, think of a plan—

“Lian!”, the booming voice made her gasp and shudder.

Ducky tensed in her hold.

“Hide”, she whispered to her daughter.

She looked up, fearful eyes shining with tears.

“But—”

“Hide yourself”, Lian repeated, and settled her down at the edge of the path.

“But I don’t wanna—“, she sobbed.

“Hide yourself, _please_ ”, she begged.

“Lian!”, Jango’s voice called again.

That was enough to startle Ducky into cloaking herself, but she still sobbed.

“Hush”, her mother tried to soothe her. “Hush, it’ll be okay. If I—Go to town. Go to town, and find that nice prothesis man, and tell him to get you to Pyto, okay?”

“ _Nanay_ …”, Ducky cried.

“ _Mahal ko kayo_ _”_ _,_ Lian breathed out, managing to leave a kiss on her daughter’s hair before bolting back and striding away from her daughter’s cries.

“Lian!”

She saw the flashlights getting closer, so she stood in the middle of the road, breath hitching.

“Miss Luna!”, Boba’s voice cut through the night, and that threw her off.

Why would the Prime—

The light of the flashlights bathed her.

“Miss Luna! Where’s Ducky?”, the boy asked, light beam swinging around erratically.

Lian didn’t answer, just glared at Jango.

The man pressed his lips in a thin line.

“Come back in. It’s cold.”

Nobody moved or said anything for an eternal moment in the chilly night.

“You just made quite clear that you didn’t want us there”, she hissed.

“Come back, please!”, Boba cried. “Please, where’s Ducky?”

Jango rested a hand on his son’s shoulders, intending to comfort him; painfully aware that words were very important right now and he hadn’t stood out at them in a very, very long time.

He decided for the truth.

“Boba changed my mind”, he breathed out into the night.

For a moment, it seemed like they faded away.

For a moment, it seemed like they weren’t enough.

Then Lian turned around and walked away, calling desperately for her daughter.

Little Luna appeared out of nowhere, crying into her mother’s arms.

Boba ran up to them.

“I’m sorry!”, he called up to them, and extracted the plushies from his bag, offering it to Ducky. “You dropped this.”

The girl still hiccupped a couple times before reaching back and taking the Fyrnock.

They walked back to the house, only sobs and crying to break the silence.

That night, after Lian and Ducky had settled on the couch, holding onto each other for dear life and after Boba announced that he would be spending the night with them, Jango was left alone in the bedroom with his thoughts:

How many more Duckys would exist if he hadn’t hunted down the deserters?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whenever I have to write Jango angst I just listen to King by Lauren Aquilina


End file.
